This version is out of date, covering development from v5.0.0 to v5.12.2. It is maintained here only for inbound reference links from elsewhere.

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The v5 TBX format

This section describes the XML source data in a TBX file.

WARNING. This is not formal vendor documentation of the format. Always work with back-ups. If doing significant interchange to from TBX files via some other workflow you may well need to contact technical support at some point. however, this section should still give you a good overview of the TBX file as used with v5.x of Tinderbox.

A TBX file can be opened and read in any competent text.code editing app. The file's data is valid XML in UTF-8 encoding and using Unix-style (line feed character) line endings. Thus much of the data can be read 'by eye' in source from. The only real exception to this is the RTF versions of notes with Rich Text formatting. Even for those the plain text form can still be read.

However, to keep the data file slim, inherited values aren't stored for every note. Rather, notes only store intrinsic attributes and those set locally in that note.

This section is structured to read like the TBX data structure with similar nesting of notes. When reading this, it is useful to also open a TBX in your code editor for reference.

Note that in general, tags write their internal tag attributes in the same order in each case (not true in early versions of the app), though you may still discover otherwise -s treat that assumption as tentative.

The top level objects of the XML (TBX) file:


Possible relevant notes (via "Similar Notes" feature):


A Tinderbox Reference File : Tinderbox File Types : Data (TBX) Files : The v5 TBX format