XML Syntax with Freemarker?

Ok,

So this is a question / comment for the floor.  A problem that has been
bothering me with Freemarker and that is that you can't quite create an
Freemarker template that is also a valid XML document.  If you are using it
as a general text templating solution it is not a problem - so far in our
project we are using it for email templates.

The problem area that had caused me to initially investigate the project
though is in the generation for providing plug points for customer content
customization of HTML markup.  In this role, I have been looking at ways to
reduce / catch developer and customer errors.  One easy way to do this is if
it supported an XML markup notation.  One can *almost *do this with the
square bracket notation if you set square brackets as the default...
however, I have noticed that there are a couple of times where you still
need to put directives at the top of the template which break the XML ness.

So to prove my point on catching errors; just take a look at
the alternative syntax page itself:
http://freemarker.sourceforge.net/docs/dgui_misc_alternativesyntax.html
In this example it is missing (and I belatedly starting take notes so I
apologize for any omission):
- 1 x </th>
- 2 x </td>
- 2 x </tr>
- 1 x </p>
- 2 x '/' in close element tag
I know this was a hastily written example - and I'd spot the error (I hope)
at runtime in the browser; but all of those errors would have been flagged
by my syntax checker while editing.  Getting rid of the directives at the
top and plopping this in an XML editor still leaves one syntax error with
the placement of a [/#if].  As such a full blown XML markup does feel in
order.

Anyhow this is a super long winded question, but is there any thoughts /
plans around this?  I know Freemarker will never be GXP - however GXP
appears dead... long live Freemarker :)  One thought around prototyping this
 once things quite down is to use an XSL template and a custom template
cache to look for '.xftl' files that are transformed into standard .ftl
files to rather than cracking open the template parser code.  While I'm
still a ways from finding the time to do this - have there been any thoughts
in the past/present around what such a syntax would look like?

Thanks in advance,
-Mike

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