[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Comercial XML editor recommendations
In message <199705290352.UAA08842@s...> Michael Leventhal writes: > Peter Murray-Rust wrote: [...] > > I'd like to, but I am very concerned about misusing this list for commercial > purposes, despite the invitation. I think I can mention that Grif did demo > _two_ XML editors at SGML '97 Europe and WWW6. I appreciate this restraint, thanks - but would like to suggest that we can relax it a bit *at this stage in XML development*. My reasoning is as follows. [BTW there is absolutely no *pressure* for any m'facturer to say anything here in advance of public release - and no inferences should be drawn from any apparent silences. So if there is no response - for good commercial reasons - fine. I take it as axiomatic that all major current SGML m'facturers are *interested* in XML, so silence carries little information :-)]. Implementations tend to define de facto procedures. For example when C++ came out it was an almighty mess. There were several different compilers, all from different manufacturers and working to different levels and by different mechanisms. Some used a preprocessor, some were native, some had templates and all on a varying timescale. You very soon got not only m'facturer lockin, but version lockin :-( The XML-spec is not yet frozen, but people are (rightly IMO) creating tools in advance of the final spec. Let's say those tools suddenly emerged on July 2 (spec is announced July 1. right?) and they take fundamentally different approaches to the language, that *may* have some bearing on language revisions. We are concerned that XML does not have multiple conformance levels, and a comparison of editor/parser features may help to approach that problem. Many *document* developers may be wishing to create trial XML documents or prototype legacy conversion. It would be reasonable for them to ask where they could find a (prototype) editor to start with. They might then discover that there were significant problems/advantages in XML. <HINT> [Some of these problems may also be dealt with if people compile XML resource pages.] </HINT> > > I also think I can pursue Peter's point about there being two types > of editors, A and B above, from a technological/philosphical/cultural > perspective. Grif also has an A and B which are not exactly what Peter > describes but sort of close. The origin was not intended to delineate a > philosophical distinction although the currents of history may have in fact > made it so. My motivation here is that I see editing as one of the key steps to getting XML universally accepted. Yes, the current text-oriented SGML tools will be modified/rewritten to give XML editors, but they won't address the applications that no-one has thought of. What does a CML editor want? > > Grif's XML editor A is a knock-off from its traditional SGML with > "WYSIWYG to the max" product. It requires a DTD, enforces structure, > and controls the presentation through a high-end style sheet mechanism. > XML editor B is a knock-off of Grif's HTML editor, Symposia, and does > not enforce structure, allows you to add tags at will, is CSS-based > and does the usual HTML-related stuff like allow you to create > (XML) links and image maps, add math, etc. This is very exciting news. I would be interested to know more. > > I initially found the idea of having two XML editors to be possibly > schizophrenic so I am intrigued by Peter being already in possession of > a two editor world-view, essentially the SGML and the HTML > approaches, DTD-required vs well-formed. I guess I always assumed > that you'd combine the two, change modes at the flick of a switch, > but somehow encourage more rather than less structure by always > having the capability of showing the user his or her structural > failings. Of course, the code bases have, by now, divurged greatly > though companies like Grif certainly leveraged their SGML experience > in entering the HTML fray. But I thought the perspectives were coalescing. > Is this two editor approach a transitional stage on the way to a more > glorious evolutionary stage or have we, in fact, distinguished different > types of tasks to which different types of tools have been precisely tailored > to exact nature of the task? What I want for an editor for the chemical community is, I think, generalisable to may other applications. (a) no discipline-specific tools, but good hooks to link them in (b) full support for XML-LINK (c) tree-based editing (d) attribute editing , controlled by DTD (e) import of legacy data and conversion on the fly by user-written add-ons (f) support for whatever solutions XML comes up with for XML-TYPE, XML-LINK XML-STYLE, XML-MONEY,... (g) WYSIWYG HTML editing with XML-LINKing to imported subdocuments. (h) Cunning chemical editing that I think of and develop. *I* can do the *chemical* bit. I'd prefer to do it once and not one for A's tool, one for B's tool, etc. My current preference for several reasons would be Java beans - e.g. there will be a HTML bean, Word bean, Molecule bean, etc. I have always felt that posters to comp.text.sgml have been very responsible in the use of commercial postings. I think that a listing of current capabilities of editors would be valuable to readers of this list. However if people don't general share this view, please post - either to the list or me personally - and I will then suggest revised etiquette. P. -- Peter Murray-Rust, domestic net connection Virtual School of Molecular Sciences http://www.vsms.nottingham.ac.uk/ xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/ To unsubscribe, send to majordomo@i... the following message; unsubscribe xml-dev List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (rzepa@i...)
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