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Hybrid and Compound Objects

Hybrid and compound objects are both data and container objects.

Hybrid and compound objects can contain text and/or graphics and they can be container (parent) objects to other objects in the hierarchy. The hierarchy in the apiguide database contains both hybrid and compound objects.

As shown in the example in the graphic below, the object named alls_well_that_ends_well is a compound (CompoundDoc) object. The object itself contains data while also being a container for (or parent to) other CompoundDoc container objects—as shown, dramatis_personae and act_i as well as the DataModule (data) objects, fm, scenedescription, and playsubt.

The objects used in the example above are objects you might use to structure your data hierarchy. However note that these are the standard, delivered objects on which you can create custom objects. You can create custom objects for different uses such as the custom FrameMaker object in the example, created for FrameMaker documents. You can define the metadata that is stored (that is, custom property sheet fields) differently for each object type you create, and you can defined the Object Containment Rules for the objects. This is done using the SDL Contenta Administration tool, pcmadmin.