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  Subject: Stylus Studio 3.1 Beta 1 Now Available!
Author: Minollo I.
Date: 20 Aug 2001 08:22 PM
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The Stylus Studio team at eXcelon Corp. is glad to announce the
availability of Stylus Studio 3.1 Beta 1 (build 57a).
3.1 Beta 1 is available to all the existing Stylus Studio users; you can
install it as an update to your existing Stylus Studio installation from:
http://download.exceloncorp.com/downloads/studio/iftw_beta/stylus%20studio.htm
This is the first public beta of version 3.1; other betas will follow,
featuring new improvements and functionality.
3.1 is scheduled to be officially released by mid-October.
eXcelon Stylus Studio Release 3.1 Beta 1 includes new features in the
following areas:
*** Support for W3C XML Schema Validation ***
Stylus Studio now exposes preliminary support for XML Schema validation;
you can find details about the XML Schema subset supported by Stylus Studio
at: http://xml.apache.org/xerces-c/schema.html
You can now generate an XML Schema or DTD schema from an XML document if it
does not already have one by switching to the Schema tab. The validation
button will validate the document against its DTD if defined; otherwise
against its associated XML Schema, if present.
*** DTD to XML Schema Document Wizard ***
A new Document Wizard is available (File|Document Wizards...|XML Editor) to
convert a DTD file into a reasonably equivalent XML Schema file.
*** Context Sensitive XSLT Editor ***
The XSLT Editor has been heavily modified and its usability highly improved.
- The Template and Full Source tabs have been unified in a single XSLT
Source tab, where you can switch between "Full Source" and "Template" modes
You can now set breakpoints in both "Full Source" and "Template" modes
- The editor now keeps track of your XSLT context (template match
patterns, and any xsl:for-each element which affects the context on which
the stylesheet is working), and it uses the SenseX technology to help you
create XPath expressions whenever they are needed
- The "Template Grid" has been removed, and now quick selection of
templates always happens through the Template combo-box at the top of the
editing area
- The XML2XML Mapper tab is now always visible, and you can always
switch to it provided that you are generating XML from your stylesheet and
that you specify source and destination schemas that should be used by Mapper
*** Drag & Drop from Schema Tree into XSLT Editor ***
It is now possible to drag & drop from the schema tree displayed in the
right pane of the XSLT Editor into the XSLT Source editing area; if you are
drag & dropping into an existing xsl:template element, you will be able to
create one the following elements:
xsl:value-of
xsl:for-each
xsl:apply-templates
The XSLT context into which the schema element/attribute is dropped will
affect the XPath expression used to create the chosen XSLT structure.
If the drag & drop target is out of any xsl:template element boundaries,
than a new template for the selected element/attribute will be created.
*** Support for Editing and Previewing FO Objects ***
XSLT stylesheets which generate FO grammars can now go through an automatic
post-processing mechanism which converts FO XML into PDF and displays it
into the Stylus Studio preview window. To do that, just bring up the
Scenario property dialog, choose the "post-processing" tab, and select
"post process with Apache FOP"; the latest version of Apache FOP (0.20.1)
is bundled with Stylus Studio, no separate downloads are needed.
You may also notice that a few FO XML elements are displayed in a different
color in the XSLT editor; that's a sign that we are working on adding the
FO grammar to the language information used by Stylus Studio to handle
syntax highlighting. This work is incomplete in the current beta version.
*** Support for XSLT Post-Processing ***
You can specify generic post-processing for XSLT. To setup generic
post-processing, open the Scenario property dialog, choose the
"post-processing" tab and select "Custom Post-Process"; in the "Command
line" field you can enter any application or script name that takes an
input (the output generated by the XSLT processor) as %1 and generates
output in the file specified in %2. Fill in the other fields as needed, and
when you will preview your XSLT stylesheet (using the internal or any
external XSLT processor), the specified post-processing command will be
executed. The result will be displayed in the preview window inside Stylus
Studio.
*** New XML Tree in Preview Window Supporting Back-Mapping ***
In addition to the IE browser preview and to the raw source preview modes,
the preview window now features an XML Tree preview mode which displays the
output of an XSLT transformation as an XML tree and supports back-mapping;
that means that when you click on an element or attribute name or content,
the XSLT Source window will highlight the position in the XSLT stylesheet
which was responsible for creating that piece in the output. Vice-versa,
when you move the cursor inside a template in the XSLT Source editor, the
XML Tree preview will highlight the element or attribute names or contents
generated inside the selected template.
*** Sophisticated Auto-Complete and SenseX Technology in Java Editor ***
Java Editor now fully supports auto-completion through the SenseX
technology. Java editor browses your import directives to gather
information about the packages you are using and provides auto-completion
when using methods or data members defined in imported classes; the
auto-completion mechanism also provides you with tips about the signature
of the class method and its required arguments. The same applies to the
classes that you are editing. Also the classpath is used to help you
auto-complete import directives.
*** Support for running and debugging Java stand-alone applications ***
You can now run and debug standalone applications using the Stylus Studio
Java Editor. In the "Java|Class Properties" menu entry you can specify
arguments that will be used to run the active Java Class. The same
debugging capabilities available while debugging XSLT/Java are available
when debugging standalone Java applications (breakpoints, step
over/into/out, Variable window, Watch window).
The Variable and Watch windows in Java debugging now also support
navigation of objects and complex structures.
*** Enhanced IDE Functionality and Other Improvements ***
Several new features have been added to the Stylus Studio framework; they
include:
- You can decide to avoid saving Scenario and XML2XML Mapper
meta-information as comment blocks in edited XSLT stylesheets
(Tools|Options|XSLT Settings)
- You can ask Stylus Studio to save Scenario and XML2XML Mapper
meta-information about XML and schema files relative to the path of the
edited XSLT stylesheet (now the default behavior)
- You can drag & drop HTTP, FTP or file system URLs from IE windows into
the Stylus Studio framework or project area, and they will be properly open
or added to the project tree
- You can drag & drop directories into the Stylus Studio project tree,
and the whole directory structure will be re-created inside the project tree
You can have Stylus Studio re-open the last open documents and/or project
(Tools|Options|Application Settings)
- You can have Stylus Studio automatically save your modified documents
every N minutes (Tools|Options|Application Settings)
- You can force Stylus Studio not to check for changes of files which
are currently explicitly or implicitly open in the application to avoid
slow behaviors of the application when switching applications and having
several remote files open (Tools|Options|Application Settings)
- Menus are now populated with the entries specific to the document
currently open in the framework
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