XML Spy
XML Spy XML is a widely spread and accepted software and has a wide support on the Internet simply because it is flexible, dynamic, user friendly, interoperable and flexible. XML today plays a pivotal role in software development and is associated with most of the programs being use today. XML spy is an extremely powerful tool associated with the XML software and allows you to create business critical software’s and also gels with XML view and the options that suit your business needs.
XML Spy offers intelligent editing options with work best with XML technologies. XML Spy consists of five editing views which can be used to work with any XML technology in which every way you chose to work or any type of XML document you would like to work with. XML Spy also increases productivity in many ways and time to market the technology.
The advantage with XML Spy is that it provides an option of presenting the data in a standardized way. If you want to enjoy the benefits of your application the XML documents that are created must be in a standardized way. You can also develop advanced XML applications using the XML Spy. But in order to be able to create these advanced applications you need the most advanced relational databases and XML based applications. XML documents should be bound to the external applications runtime also.
XML Spy support the most of the databases which are popular. XML Spy is the only tool that is available for the entire web services platform which can tackle and provides you an edge with multi level developmental programming and offers a boundary less environment to work with XML documents.
XML Spy’s XML Editor
The XML Spy offers an advanced text tool which allows you to view XML documents and allows you to navigate and edit them easily. So this feature not only accelerates the programming overall but also increases productivity. The XML Spy Advanced text tool offers features like editing features, code completion, source folding, line numbers, validation process which is in built, entry helpers and structure checker which checks the document if it is well formed and a lot more knick knacks. These features will be well appreciated by the software developer who has deadlines to meet.
Advanced Text View
The advanced text view is the most popular feature and famous view of the XML Spy package because of its powerful features. More over XML Spy is continuing to add more features to the Advanced text view every year, and so the version has been changing progressively. Now the XML Spy’s Advanced text view also includes a CSS feature or the Cascading style sheet feature.
Before the XML Spy was brought into the XML landscape editing was a different troublesome ball game. While editing the XML document it was very easy to end up with unbalanced brackets and unequal number of brackets. The XML Spy code completion feature has helped solved this problem to a large extent as it automatically completes the code for you by recognizing it instantly and completing it for you. That way the chances are very minimal that you may go wrong and it also has the scope of abating human errors in this area fully to a hundred percent.
After completing the code for you automatically it places the cursor strategically in the middle of the line so that you can start adding child elements without any effort. The entry helpers have a drop down list of elements, attributes and many more functionalities which has a comprehensive list and you can chose the appropriate action to complete the entry.
The line numbering feature also helps in easy navigation and the line numbers can be used to locating errors easily. The XML Spy has a button on the toolbar which helps you achieve this task and also efficiently correlates the XSLT. The line numbering feature in XML Spy also helps create bookmarks which act as an easy referencing tool if you have to proceed with the document further at that point of time but may find a need to come back to this point where you have bookmarked. The XML Spy’s source folding feature helps you to expand and collapse various parts of the document and also created a hierarchical structure for your document which again helps easy navigation.
The document indentation also shows the documents tag and the end of tag within the same file. So you can use the start and end points to refer while editing or correcting the document. The XML Spy Advanced text view also provides a tool called pretty print. The pretty print option helps to reformat the XML document and has the ability to open or close indents and tags making it easy on the human eye and for easy reading purpose. The XML Spy Advanced Text view also has a feature to do a spell check in multi languages like French, German, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish and many more. It also includes a separate English language medical dictionary and a legal dictionary also.
XML Spy Enhanced Grid View
The enhanced grid view feature of the XML Spy is an advanced feature which shows the hierarchical structure of the XML document using a set of nested components. These components can be expanded and collapsed easily and gives a view of the tree like structure of the document. It also allows you to manipulate the document easily. You can use the drag and drop features along with this feature in XML Spy. The enhanced view of the XML Spy also has a data table view and this offers data to be viewed in a tabular form. The tabular view resembles the excel spreadsheets and it achieves this by taking the attributes and sub elements into the table format.
The data base table format is well integrated with the Enhanced grid view and you can switch between both the views for every element literally. The table contents can also be edited using the drag and drop feature of the Enhanced grid view feature. Using these controls and features you can easily work with the enhanced grid view like working on excel sheets.
XML Schema and WSDL View
The XML documents a Web service description language files or the WSDL files can be edited using the context sensitive WSDL view of the XML view. The XML schema uses a flexible Meta language to structure the XML documents. Since the XML schemas are supposed to be extremely complex to understand the Schema editor simplifies the document by showing the Xml Schema elements graphically. Unlike every other tool available the XML schema of the XML Spy allows you to be directly involved by giving you access to manipulate the schema using the advanced feature of dragging and dropping elements along with intelligent editing options.
Authentic View
The XML Spy’s Authentic view allows you to view documents which have been created authentically. The authentic view enables users to access information and allows then to directly capture the content in any XML document or XML databases without having them to know or understand the technology behind the façade. Users while entering information would do it directly like they are working on a word processor but in the background the information enters the XML document or run in a relational database.
The XML Spy’s Authentic view is also license free software and it can be distributed to many users simultaneously without any restrictions. The Introduction of the Authentic view in XML Spy gives you the freedom to enter to data in any way you like for example in text view, or word processor style or even in XML itself. You can also use this feature called authentic view to get a preview of the style in which the business users will finally view the document. In addition to all of this the XML relational databases can be the basis for the authentic forms and this allows the business users to edit data in the databases with ease and not much complications. While making changes all the changes made are saved directly on to the data base.
Browser View
This is another feature which you can use to view the XML document in browser style. You can view the data as and when modified in the HTML format by using the browser view option of the XML Spy. The XML Spy browser view can also be used to edit the HTML format if you have XSL style sheet along with the XML Spy. The browser view allows you to take a look at the document in enhanced grid view or text view along with a browser view. You can use al these option together by just switching windows. However the integrated browser would require at least internet explorer version 5 or higher.
The XML Validator
XML Spy offers the XML validation window which has a large number of features to help you create a document which is valid, and that does not require further validation. Intelligent features of the XML Spy validation window like the code completer and the drag drop feature, and number lines help to create an error free document which can be validated easily.
XML Spy Download Link
http://www.altova.com/download/xmlspy/xml_editor_enterprise.html
PDF User and Reference Manuals and Tutorials
http://www.altova.com/documentation/reference_manual_XML_tutorial.html
