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  Subject: Stylus Studio 3.1 Beta 1 Now Available!
Author: Minollo I.
Date: 20 Aug 2001 08:40 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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