RE: Open Source XML Editor

[Danny Ayers <danny@panlanka.net>]

Hi,
Interesting article - I got OpenOffice a while ago, but hadn't got around to
looking at the XML.
I can see the use for knocking out presentable documents, maybe I'm missing
something, but it does seem rather a rather limited & hard-work approach :
type in your data, using formatting to differentiate between elements, run
it through a transform - ok so far. But then for every edit, you have to
return to the original source doc, save and transform it again. Also, it's a
one way process - unless you write a transform to convert other docs into
something OpenOffice understands. Hardly WYSIWYG, even if you do limit
yourself to defined styles. In the article you suggest things you can do
using OpenOffice and AxKit - I'm not familiar with AxKit but you mention
that it's a WYSIWYG XML editor, so surely if you have that, it defeats the
object of using OO? Why not just pick up a cheap purpose-built XML editor? -
e.g. I've seen good reports on the shareware XMLWriter (www.xmlwriter.net I
think).
Good article though, all the same ;-)

Cheers,
Danny.

<- -----Original Message-----
<- From: Matt Sergeant [mailto:matt@sergeant.org]
<- Sent: 08 February 2001 18:20
<- To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
<- Subject: Open Source XML Editor
<-
<-
<- I've been holding off on this so that xml.com could publish the article,
<- but for those wanting an open source XML document editor, you may find
<- http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2001/02/07/openoffice.htm interesting.
<-
<- Summary: Author in OpenOffice, save as XML (or in StarOffice 6, the
<- default save format), use tools I wrote to convert to docbook, or other
<- formats, and you have a perfect tool for the job (IMHO).
<-
<- Alternatively, with AxKit, you can store OpenOffice files directly on the
<- web server, and AxKit will detect them, extract the Content.xml from the
<- zip package, transform to docbook, and then write a stylesheet of your
<- choice to transform to something renderable. See that in action at
<- http://take23.org/articles/2001/02/05/axkit.sxw (thats an openoffice
<- Writer 6.0 file, which you can download in "raw" format by passing a
<- querystring passthru=1 - save the file and try unzip or winzip on it).
<-
<- --
<- <Matt/>
<-
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