To create a new desktop, create a file (called desktop.xml by default, but this name can be changed in the configuration file) that contains all the components. The components will be added to the visual layout of the desktop in the order that they appear in the XML file.
A valid XML file is called a "well-formed document". To be well-formed, a document must have correct physical and logical structures. The physical structure is a tagged document, very similar in structure to an SGML file. The logical structure is defined in the DTD file (for example, "a tree contains treeNodes").
Since XML is a standard, there are several editors and validators that you can use to build the desktop.xml file. A text editor such as Notepad will work fine, although an XML editor can make the work easier by ensuring that your XML file is well-formed.
The steps below show how to create a desktop definition in three stages. The first stage creates the Desktop tag and its child tag; the second stage adds to the ScenarioArea tag; the third stage adds the four CustomizableArea tags. This file will not be useful by itself, since you must also define all the classes and resources that the defined desktop needs.