XMLSpear
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Introduction
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XMLSpear is a free XML editor with a great real-time validation feature.
It is easy to use, built in Java and available for all platforms.

XMLSpear is great for users that just want to work with XML files without deep knowledge of the XML syntax.
The XML is displayed in three different views:
  • The treetable is great to see the structure of the xml file. Don't worry about writings tags or escaping reserved XML characters. You can insert and delete nodes, and even build a whole document from scratch. It is the most convenient view for correcting and editing xml. This view makes XMLSpear different form many other XML tools.
  • The element view is especially usefull if your element has many attributes.
  • The source view is great for correcting unwellformed xml, doing finds-replaces or copy-and-paste. You can always escape to this view to do advanced things that are not supported in the other views.
Mac OS users can open and edit their plist files, even when they are in binary format.
XMLSpear is packaged with a MQSeries plugin for browing queues and putting messages, so you can even test your MQ based services.

Please read the progress pages for more details.
A sample plugin is now included in the download package !!
Features

Some of the features of XMLSpear that are already available:

  • Full schema validation using DOM3 in Xerces 2.9.0
  • Tree editor for inserting and deleting nodes
  • Real-time validation against schema or DTD while editing
  • Interactive resolving of schema or DTD locations
  • Test facility for correct proxy settings
  • GUI components reflecting the XML schema
  • Visual and textual feedback for errors
  • Support for multi-document view
  • Generation of complete XML documents from schema
  • Opening and correction and even formatting of not-well formed XML
  • Unformat XML to filter out all the whitespace to shrink your file size
  • Checks xsd schemas for errors, in exactly the same way as normal xml files
  • Plug-In interface for extending functionality
  • Flexible encoding (character set) support during opening and saving files
  • Support for Unix and Windows text formats
  • Text editor for plain (unformatted) text is included.
  • Support for binary plist files (Mac Os)
  • Project viewer
  • Integrated text and HTML plugin
  • Import or export messages to MQSeries
Roadmap

XMLSpear is still full in development.
Short term planning:

  • Editor general
    • XPath search
    • Keep positioning in XML between tree and source view.
  • Tree Editor
    • Select of multiple nodes (suspended)
  • Source Editor
    • Show xpath position
  • Validation
    • Support for xml catalog (suspended)
System Requirements

The editor is 100% pure Java and will run on Java Runtime 1.4.x upwards. Testing is done on the following platforms Mac OS 10.4.11 and Windows XP. Please let us know of your experiences running on other platforms.
A separate download is available for Mac OS 10.2.x users.

Downloads
XMLSpear is available as java web start application or as standalone application. If you use the webstart version, you will always have the latest updates. But be patient the first time you launch XMLSpear and wait till the application is completely loaded. This will be the case if you see the XMLSpear logo appear in the centerpane. It may take several minutes depending on your connection. The next time you launch, will be much faster because only the modified files are downloaded.
Please check the included readme.txt included in the stand alone package.

Main downloads.

Special downloads.

File which are not included un the webstart version.

Plugins
You can extend the functionality by using plugins. Their are two types of plugins:
  • ContentHandlers which can edit or browse certain file types (not released yet)
  • Adapters that can import or export data to one of the contentHandlers.
At this moment you can only make your own adapter plugins. I am inviting you to write your own import/export functionality. It is very simple to build a adapter. You don't have to be a experienced java programmer. Take a look at my sample plugin. In general a adapter will do some transformation of data.
Some ideas for plugins:
  • Import and exports to Excel
  • XML instance to xsd importer (take a look at Castor 's XMLInstance2Schema class or develop your own XML-to-XSD stylesheet)
  • Database adapters
  • Soap adapter for testing webservices
  • Print or PDF adapters
So start programming now and get your name on the list below!!

Provider Description Version Download link
DonkeyDevelopment MQseries jms plugin for browsing and putting messages 1.03 included in distribution
DonkeyDevelopment Hello example plugin 1.00 included in distribution

 

Contact

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