Re: Suggestions for XML editors

[Michael Smith <smith@xml-doc.org>]

Jean-Marc VANEL <jmvanel@industrysuppliers.com> writes:

[regarding features that XML editors should have]

> What really would make the difference would be functionalities like:
> 
> - selecting, cut-copy-paste, and advance cursor to node lists selected by
> XPath strings
> - edit through an XPath selection: hide all the rest not selected by the
> XPath (of course remember those XPath associated to the Schema)
> [...other good ideas]

It would be good to have an ongoing discussion about criteria for
editors, maybe eventually come up with an informal document describing
expected application behavior, and rationale for why it's expected.

Documenting desirable integration with related technologies (e.g.
XSLT/XPath things) is worthwhile, but a set of standard descriptions
of "basic" XML editor behavior would be good too-- For example, how an
editor should handle insertion of required elements and attributes,
insertion/choices from groups of required elements, selection of IDs
for IDREF attributes, etc.

> What about free software projects ?

A standard description of expected editing-application behavior would
give open-source developers and users common criteria to develop to
and evaluate against. Also for evaluating proprietary apps I guess

-- 
Michael Smith          mailto:smith@xml-doc.org
xml-doc                http://www.xml-doc.org/