EditiX XML Editor - Manual

Released 01/13/10
For version 2010 Build 020110
http://www.editix.com

Note

EditiX is a cross-platform and multi-purposes XML Editor, Visual Schema Editor and XSLT Debugger.

An EditiX Number Version is built with :
- A Year (like 2009) bound to major features
- A Service Pack adding minor features and fixing various bugs (like SP2)
- A Build number (like 020109) including bugs fixing for a service pack.

• 1. General Interface
  • a. Global view
  • b. Document type
  • c. Menu content
  • d. ToolBar content
  • e. Status bar
  • f. Location bar
  • g. File browser
  • h. Other Panels
• 2. File management
  • a. Standard file access
  • b. Remote file access
  • c. Project
• 3. Editing
  • a. Tree
  • b. Editor
  • c. Content assistant
  • d. Namespace Manager*
  • e. Formatting
• 4. Templates
  • a. Creating a template
  • b. Updating a template
  • c. Using parameters
• 5. XML Differencing
  • a. Comparing the current document to another one
  • b. Diff content
• 6. XML Schema
  • a. DTD
  • b. W3C XML Schema
  • c. XML RelaxNG
• 7. XSLT document
  • a. Basic Transforming
  • b. Assign an XSLT document
  • c. XSLT Debug
• 8. DocBook document
  • a. Basic Transforming
  • b. Repeating the last transformation
• 9. XSL-FO  document
  • a. Basic Transforming
  • b. Repeating the last transformation
• 10. XML Form
  • a. XML Form Designer
  • b. XML Form Editor
• 11. Document preview
  • a. HTML Preview
  • b. SVG Preview
• 12. User preferences
  • a. List of user preferences
  • b. Installing a new XML Parser
  • c. Installing a new XSLT Transformer
• 13. EditiX Components

1. General Interface

a. Global view

1. A set of menus which are active depending on the current document type*
2. A toolbar varying with the current document type*
   
3. A tab list of opened documents with an icon and a file name depending on the current document type* and the current document path
   
4. A status bar with data about the current editing state
5. A panel on the left side containing various windows like a file browser, a project manager, an xpath evaluator...
   

(*) A document type is choosen when opening a document or creating a new one.

b. Document type

Each document has a document type that has to be choosen when opening a file according to the selected filter from the file dialog box. You may update this document type using the File Info panel (from the "File" menu).
When opening a document from the "Open recent" menu item or by opening a project from the "Open project" menu item, the document type is always restored. User may also change the default file encoding. User cannot define a new document type but it is always possible to assign another document type for a template document from the "Template" menu and the "Edit templates" item.

Here a list of available document types :

Document Type	Role	Icon
XML	Standard XML document
DTD	Document Type declaration document
TEXT	Simple text document without XML content
XSLT	XSL Transformations document
XSLT2	XSL Transformations 2.0 document
XQR	XQuery document
XHTML	XHTML document
FO	XSL-FO document
RNG	XML RelaxNG document
XSD	W3C XML Schema document
SVG	Scalable Vector Graphics document
DOCBOOK	DocBook document
EXML	Very large XML document. EditiX will use minimal functions for saving the memory. You will not have a tree.
EXF	XML Form Designer
XXF	XML Form Editor
ANT	Ant project document

c. Menu content

- Options menu

- Help menu

(*) on Mac OS X the ctrl key is replaced by the "command" key.

d. ToolBar content

Icon	Role	Shortkey*
	New document	ctrl N
	Open a document	ctrl O
	Save the current document	ctrl S
	Save the current document to another path.
	Undo. For some operations like surrounding a tag, you will have to use twice this action.	ctrl Z
	Redo	ctrl Y
	Cut	ctrl X
	Copy	ctrl C
	Paste	ctrl V
	Search / Replace	ctrl F
	Select the current node	ctrl T
	Surround/Unsurround the selection or the current node by a comment.	ctrl M
	Surround the selection or the current node by another element. It will list all the document elements for surrounding.
	Copy the previous sibling element.	ctrl shift P
	Check or validate the current document	ctrl K
	Format the current document
	Enable or disable the content assitant. Note that this state will be saved inside the project.
	Lock/Unlock the element updates. Note that this state will be saved inside the project.
	Display the whitespaces
	Access to the previous used XML document. It will work even if an XML document has been closed.
	Return to the last used XML document after accessing to a previous one
	Split vertically
	Split horizontally

(*) on Mac OS X the "ctrl" key is replaced by the "command" key.

- For XSLT document :

It contains the default toolbar and also this content.

Icon	Role	Shortkey*
	Enabled/Disable the content assistant
	Start degugging
	Run until the next breakpoint	ctrl shift B
	Run step by step	ctrl shift E
	Stop debugging
	Apply a transformation

- For XQuery document :

Icon	Role	Shortkey*
	Apply a transformation

- For DTD document :

It contains the default toolbar and also this content.

Icon
Role	Check the DTD syntax.
Shortkey

e. Status bar

When the mouse is over an error message a tooltip is visible.

- Background task :

It displays the following icon when a background task is working. It can be :

• An XSL Transformation
• A DocBook Transformation
• An XSL-FO Transformation
  

By clicking on this icon, the user can visualize the current tasks. When a task is terminated, a dialog box is
displayed and if there's no background tasks the icon disappears.

- XPath location for the caret/cursor :

This is an XPath location from the current caret/cursor location. This XPath location has the following structure :

/tag[ number of node ]/tag...

/a/b[2] means the second 'b' element from the root 'a'.

- Error message :

An error message appears while checking or validating a document (XML or DTD) or while transforming a document. When detecting multiple errors a red icon is added. By clicking on this icon, the user can visualize all the errors from an external list.

f. Location bar

The location bar displays when navigating in the XML document the node hierarchy.

In this sample sample, it is displayed you are in a node family, the parent of this node is the element name, etc...

When moving the mouse over a node of the location bar, the XPath location is displayed. When clicking on this node, the text's cursor is moved to the bound location. A menu popup is available for moving, selecting, copying or cutting the selecting node.

g. File/ZIP/FTP browser

The File/ZIP/FTP browser is a left tree available with the bound item of the File menu or the View menu. This tree browses your home directory by default (or a zip file content). This tree maintains the last selected element (file or directory) even when closing and reopening EditiX.

For using the browser, you must select a filter with the document you want to open and click on the "Open" bottom button.

A shortcut key ctrl shift 1 helps you opening or closing the File browser. For changing the default directory, use the bottom icon and select a new one, it will be saved for your next usage.

Note that you can open a ZIP file with a Drag'n Drop on EditiX. For deciding what is a ZIP or not, EditiX uses the zipBrowser/zip extensions preference containing all the ZIP file extensions.

h. Other Panels

Others panels are available on the left interface part.

The File Info Panel

It is available from the File menu. It displays the File type, the size, the encoding charset and the File path. You can copy the File path by selecting the text inside. You may also change the current document type, sometimes this is useful when you choose a wrong file type.

The Node Search Panel

It is available from the Search Menu. It displays a panel for searching nodes as elements, attributes, attribute values. This is useful when you ignore XPath expressions. You can search from the start of the document or from the current selected node (in the tree or in the text). Note that this panel can be activated for detecting occurences of the current element by the editor popup or by activating F2. By the editor popup you can also display occurences of an attribute.

Character Reference View

This is available from the XML menu. It is used for listing UTF-16 characters and inserting it easily inside the editor. Note that some characters may not be visible due to limitation of your default Font. By doucle-clicking on a character, the character reference will be inserted at your caret location.

XML Snippets View

This view is available from the XML menu. The goal of this view is to help you to build your own elements library for increasing productivity with usual XML structure. This view is composed of folders and nodes. A node in blue is an element, in green this is an attribute. You may change the element or attribute name using a popup. Drag'n and drop is available for ordering folders or nodes.

An element node can have two states. The first state is the default one, the element added is the same one inside the library (except that if you add an element containing a text, the XML snippets view will store that it musn't close like <MyElement/>). The element snippet is added from the current editor element node (in the tree or in the text). Note that when adding, it will not include the children, this is your job to include after each child. The second state is a repeating state that is set using the tree popup. When an element can be repeated, a dialog box when inserting will ask to the repeating number. This is useful as usage for adding a table with various rows and columns.

For adding a snippet into you XML document you may using drag'n drop from the panel, or double-click or using the first icon of the toolbar's tree. Note that the added structure is not formatted, you may after format your document using the default format action (XML menu or inside the default toolbar). If you select a text before adding, and if your element snippet could contain a text, then the selected text will be surrounded by the added element.

For adding your own snippet, you must open an XML document with the good structure. Then after selecting a folder or an element snippet you must use the second icon in the toolbar of the tree. All the attributes will be added and you may delete or change the name or the value using the popup of the tree. When adding a snippet, if your editor's element has a text content, then a special flag will be stored for avoiding an auto-closing element. Using the popup of the tree, you may add a comment for your new snippet and decide if you wish to repeat it.

All your snippets are stored in your HOME/.editix/snippets.xml.

2. File management

EditiX supports several ways for editing a file. The drag'n drop is available from the file system to editix (tabbed pane) or to the project panel. Basically the file system is supported, but it is also possible to load and handle a document by a remote access like FTP. We describe here the way the user can manage its files.

For Windows Platform, you may choose EditiX as your default editor for any XML documents, thus editix will be opened each time you will select an XML document :
- Select an XML document,
- Right click, choose "Open With"
- Browse (go to the last item) for selecting an executable from the bin directory of EditiX Installation like editix-XMLEditor.exe or run.bat.

a. Standard file access

b. Remote file access

• FTP (File Transfer Protocol) access : Menu File, Item "Open by FTP..."
  
• ZIP or JAR file format : Menu File, Item "Open by ZIP..."
  

c. Project

For displaying the project panel, use the File/Project/Project Manager menu item or the View/Windows/Project Manager menu item. This panel contains your favorite files with the respective parameters like transformation (XSLT, FO), maximized state... Note that when a file is not found it is colored in red.

Note : If you leave EditiX having this panel opened, it will be restored automatically at the next EditiX call.

A project is stored in a file with the ".pre" extension. You may save/load your project or use the default one.

Toolbar actions :

Put the current opened document into the selected project node
Add a new group
Edit the group name
Delete the selected node (group or file)
Lock enabled : The current project file will be loaded automatically when editix's loading

Menu File / Project :

- ProjectManager : Show or hide the project panel. Note that it will save the project panel visibility for the next editix usage

- Open project... : Open a project file (*.pre)

- Save project : Save the current project file (*.pre)

- Save project as... : Save the current project file (*.pre)

- Export project as a ZIP document... : Export the project content in a zip. Note that it will create relative paths even for XSLT transformation... So your ZIP file can be reused on another machine and can work directly. It will insert too an EditiX project file.

- Action / Open the selected file : Open the selected file from the project

- Action / Add the current document : Add the current opened document to the selected project node.

- Action / Add all the documents : Add the current opened documents to the selected project node.

- Action / Add a folder : Add a folder to the selected project node.

- Action / Rename a folder : Rename the selected project folder.

- Action / Delete a file reference or a folder : Delete the selected project node. Note that, it will not delete physically your file.

- Check project files : Check all files from the project. When a file is not found it is shown in red.

- Lock the project state for the next editix usage : A way to store the project panel state for the next usage.

Drag'n and drop is both available for project nodes (group or file) or from the file system. For opening your document just double-click on the file node, if the document is already opened it will be selected. When leaving the project, the visible files are saved and will be restored the next time the project will be visible.

3. Editing

a. Tree

The tree is another view of the text part. The tree is always synchronized with the document content and the current document location. When a tree can't be synchronized to the text due to a user document error this icon is located at the root . By clicking on this icon, the user can visualize the error on the
text part. A tooltip is also available with a message summing up the problems.

User can select a node by clicking on the tree, thus the corresponding element is selected inside the text. It is also possible to move or copy a node by dragging and dropping the good content(*) (Due to a problem with the JDK implementation on Mac OS X, this action is reserved to Unix/Linux and Windows).

(*) The operation will not work if you copy or move into an auto-close element like <a/> you must have a node with <a></a>.

We list here the available tree actions :

Action	Role
	Comment the select node. If a comment is located inside the node, this action is rejected so in this case commenting the node will need to remove all inner comments.
	Copy the selected node and its content. Note that this feature will act on the editing part.
	Cut the selected node and its content. Note that this feature will act on the editing part.
	Switch to another tree view. We detail it after.

• Default : The local node name is displayed with the first attribute value if available. If the node has more than one attribute a "..." content is added
• Prefix : The namespace prefix is displayed followed by the local node name. If there's no namespace prefix a "?" text is shown.
  
• Namespace : This is the namespace value followed by the local node name. If there's no namespace a "?" text is shown.
  
• Qualified name : This is the prefix and the local name.
  

b. Editor

General

Current node

Node actions

For managing XML, the editor supports various actions :

- Ctrl up or down keys will select the next or the previous node (element or text node )

- Ctrl shift up or down keys will select the next of the previous parsing error

- Various node selection or operations :

It is important to understand that all this operations can work only for the current node. EditiX may have
a short delay depending your document size before finding the current one, it is notified by underlining the starting and the ending part of the node.

In this sample, the current one is fo:simple-page-master (we will use it for our next examples).

Surrounding a tag (ctrl-shift T) is a way to put a new parent to the current node or the selection (in priority for this last case).

The result is :

If you don't want this result, just undo twice.

When you want to comment the current node, call the "Comment/Uncomment" (ctrl-m) action from the Edit menu, the result will be :

If you want to uncomment, go simply into the comment and use the same command.

Popup

A popup (right mouse button) is available using the current node :

One useful action is the "Display Occurences of", that can display any repetitions of an element name or an attribute. Using also the F2 key, it can display all the occurence of an element node.

Here a document sample, using the popup action or F2, we have to the left part of the editor a new panel with :

The refactor submenu is a way to change all your document, for sample supposing you wish to rename all the occurences of an element.

The refactor actions will depend on the current node and the document type. For sample in an XSD document, you may rename an element name, it will change also all the references to this name (by reference, substitution group...).

c. Content assistant

A content assistant is available inside the editor part. This content assistant will change depending on the document type. There's
several content assistants, each one can be accessible with a previous user sequence. In all the cases, when available the content assistant doesn't avoid the user to insert any text but it filters the possibilities depending on the current inserted sequence, the availability of a schema or the document type.

The content assistant works when inserting a characters sequence or by using the ctrl space key.

- Default

This is available when inserting "<!". It offers an XML declaration, a Comment or a CDATA section.

- DTD

It is available when inserting a "<!" sequence. This is a simple list of the available DTD parts like ELEMENT, ATTRIBUTE, ENTITY or NOTATION.

- A document with a schema

This last case is the more complex one and works with the following schemas :

• DTD
• W3C XML Schema
• XML RelaxNG
  

d. Namespace Manager

• A namespace prefix : This is a prefix definition or a bound namespace for the current node (meaning the definition is inside an ancestor node)
• A namespace URL : This is the namespace URL bound to the prefix. When a node is "qualified" it is inside this namespace URL.
• A current flag. This flag is for deciding what is the current namespace. There's only one activated flag because a node can't be assigned to several namespaces.
  

When adding a namespace definition without a prefix then a default namespace is added (under the format xmlns="...").

Here a sample with namespaces :

<p1:element1 xmlns:p1="http://www.p1.com" xmlns:p2="http://www.p2.com">
    <p2:element2/>
</p1:element1>

We have two namespace definitions for the URL http://www.p1.com and http://www.p2.com. The node "element1" is inside a namespace mapped to the URL http://www.p1.com and the node "element2" is mapped to a namespace with the URL http://www.p2.com.

e. Formatting

When editing an XML document, it is better to format the document for a pretty reading. Formatting is a process that will add empty spaces for aligning children nodes. These spaces will not corrupt your document because they are outside the tag content. Note that there's no Undo available when formatting, however you may save your document before and re-read it for undoing.

Formatting an XML document is available inside the default toolbar with this action . However you may choose more sophisticated scenarios for formatting through the XML / Format Menu :

- Pretty Format : This is the default one
- Explicit Open/Close : It will replace any closing tags like <a/> by <a></a>
- Text Trimming : It will remove any white spaces before and after a tag content. Thus <a>  1   </a> will becore <a>1</a>
- Unformat : This is a way for creating a very short document by removing any unuseful spaces. Only for an application processing.

For separating each element level (parent and children as sample), EditiX uses a set of tabulations. A tabulation is a special character composed with several whitespaces. You may change the number of tabulations and the number of whitespaces in the XML/Format submenu. You may also use the Preferences option (application/file/tab-size and xml/xml-config/format-space).

4. Templates

a. Creating a template

b. Updating a template

• Edit : The template (default one or not) will be editable inside EditiX.
  
• Remove : Remove the selected template. This action is disabled for the default templates.
  

c. Using parameters

• ${date}: Insert the current date/time
• ${cursor} : The caret/cursor will be at this location
• ${default-encoding} : This is the default document encoding like UTF8 available from the File menu.
• ${lastname}, ${firstname}, ${address}, ${phone}, ${email}, ${company} : User information
  

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="${default-encoding}"?>

<!-- New document created at ${date} -->

${cursor}

5. XML Differencing

• The left tree which is the current document (or a new selected one)
• The right tree which is another XML document choosen by the user
• A summary table for each selected node from one of the previous trees.
  

	Element added
	Element moved
	Element equal
	At least, one different descendant
	Element removed

a. Comparing the current document to another one

b. Diff content

• The "Change" column with a name for classifying the difference : "attribute removed, attribute added, attribute changed, element different,
  element added, element removed, element moved"
• The "Content" column which contains the detail about the change. For the case of an attribute this is the name or the value of the attribute. For the case of an element this is the name of the tag.
  

6. XML Schema

• A DTD (Document Type definition) which is a very common and simple way to check a document
• A W3C XML Schema which is a pure XML schema that is more precise and complex than a DTD
• A XML RelaxNG Schema which is may be between the DTD and the W3C XML Schema
  

a. DTD

<!ELEMENT root ( child1, child2 )>
<!ELEMENT child1 #PCDATA>
<!ELEMENT child2 #PCDATA>

b. W3C XML Schema

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" elementFormDefault="qualified">
  <xs:element name="root">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="child1" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/>
        <xs:element ref="child2" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="child1" type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:element name="child2" type="xs:string"/>
</xs:schema>

For building a new W3C XML Schema the user must activate the "New..." item from the "File" menu and choose the W3C XML Schema
line. An editor for XML document will be opened. The content assistant will help you to choose your tags or attributes.

For using the visual mode, click on the Visual Editor tab.

The main table contains all your global definition. You can change an element name by double clicking on the name column. The properties panel lists all your current element properties. A property in a gray color means the property has not been used. You can set a simple type facets, list or union using the "Simple type" tab.

For editing an node content (a complex type) you must select the first column icon () or double click on the Type column cell. It will switch to the visual mode.

Using the right mouse click on the selected element (in blue) will show a popup for adding/removing/moving/opening.... Clicking on the square in front an element will close the element content, clicking again will opening the element content. For opening all the element content, use the popup or this toolbar action . When using a reference (element, attribute, attributegroup, group...) you can go into this reference definition by double clicking or by using this toolbar action , this is similar for external type definition. Note that the green arrows will help you to return to the previous/next element.

When switching from the visual editor to the source editor, the last selected element is shown. This is similar from the source editor to the visual editor, the cursor location is used for opening the current node.

The user can generate an HTML document for this schema using the DTD/Schema menu (Generate a documentation from this schema...). Here a sample of schema document.

Rather than building yourself a W3C XML Schema it is also possible to let editiX generating a new one from an XML document instance.
For using this feature you must open an XML document and use the "Generate a W3C XML schema from this document" item of the
"DTD/Schema" menu.

After building a schema, you must assign it to your XML document. For acting, you have the "Assign W3C XML Schema to document..." item
from the "DTD/Schema" menu.

Here a sample for the result choosing an external test.xsd schema :

<application xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="file:///home/japisoft/test.xsd">
</application>

<application att1="value1" att2="value2" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="test.xsd">
</application>

<application xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.mysite.com/test.xsd">
</application>

c. XML RelaxNG

?xml version="1.0"?>
<grammar xmlns="http://relaxng.org/ns/structure/1.0">
  <start>
    <ref name="root"/>
  </start>

  <define name="root">
    <element>
      <name ns="">root</name>
      <group>
        <ref name="child1"/>
        <ref name="child2"/>
      </group>
    </element>
  </define>

  <define name="child1">
    <element>
      <name ns="">child1</name>
      <empty/>
    </element>
  </define>

  <define name="child2">
    <element>
      <name ns="">child2</name>
      <empty/>
    </element>
  </define>
</grammar>

7. XSLT document

• A multi-view XSLT Editor
• An XSLT Debugger
  

1. An XSLT Editor in the center which is a standard XML editor with an adapted content assistant
2. A DATA Source view which is not editable but where the user can evaluate XPath expressions
3. A Result view which contains the transformation result document. This view has two modes : The Source mode which is a text result view and  an HTML 3.2 preview.
   

User can drag'n drop a node from the Data source to the XSLT editor for building template, for-each or value-of instructions.

The XSLT Debugger has five main parts :

1. An XSLT Editor in the center which is a standard XML editor with an adapted content assistant
2. A set of breakpoints located beside the XSLT Editor
   
3. A DATA Source view which is not editable but where user can evaluate XPath expressions
4. A Result view which contains the transformation result document. This view has two modes : The Source mode which is a text result view and  an HTML 3.2 preview.
   
5. A Debugging data view at the same location than the result view.
   

a. Basic Transforming

• XSLT file (required) : This is the current document path. This field must be specified only when transforming from an XML document.
  
• Data file (required) : This is the data document used by the XSLT document for producing a final document
• Result file (required) : This is the result document from the transforming of the Data file by the XSLT file
• Check box for opening the result file (optional) : When this element is pressed and the transformation is terminated, the result document is automatically opened as a new editix document. Most of the time it should be non-pressed.
• Set of parameters (optional) : This is a set of XSLT parameters we describe below
  

<xsl:param name="test1"></xsl:param>
...

<xsl:value-of select="$test1"/>

b. Assign an XSLT document

<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="file:///home/test/test.xsl"?>

c. XSLT Debug

	Start the XSLT Debugging. It will run until the first breakpoint
	Run until the next breakpoint
	Run step by step
	Conclude the XSLT Debugging

• "Call stack" : This is the previous XSLT elements processed. The user can click on a line for displaying the similar line inside the XSLT editor. Two icons and are respectively for output elements and XSLT elements (with an XSLT prefix).
• "XPath NodeSet" : This is the current XPath expression evaluated with the found nodes. By clicking one a line, EditiX will display the similar line inside the data source view. Two icons and are respectivly for available nodes and for the current node (from the xpath context).
  
• "Variables" : This is a set of accessible variables with their name, type and value. By clicking on a line, EditiX will show you the bound line inside your XSLT document.
• "Parameters" : It will display global and local parameters ( for templates ).
  

8. DocBook document

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.0//EN"  "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.0/docbookx.dtd">

<book>
    <bookinfo>
        <title>Your title</title>
        <author>
            <firstname>Your first name</firstname>
            <surname>Your surname</surname>
            <affiliation>
                <address>
                    <email>Your e-mail address</email>
                </address>
            </affiliation>
        </author>
        <copyright>
            <year>2004</year>
            <holder role="mailto:your e-mail address">Your name</holder>
        </copyright>
        <abstract>
            <para>Include an abstract of the book&apos;s contents</para>
        </abstract>
    </bookinfo>
    <part>
        <title>Part1</title>
        <chapter>
            <title>Part 1, Chapter 1</title>
            <sect1>
                <title>Part1, Chapter 1, Section1</title>
                <para>    Your Text </para>
            </sect1>
        </chapter>
    </part>
</book>

a. Basic Transforming

• HTML
• HTML Help
• XHTML
• Java Help
• FO
• PDF
• XML
• PRINT
• PCL
• PS
• TXT
• SVG
  

b. Repeating the last transformation

9. XSL-FO  document

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<fo:root xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format">
  <fo:layout-master-set>
    <fo:simple-page-master master-name="my-page">
      <fo:region-body margin="1in"/>
    </fo:simple-page-master>
  </fo:layout-master-set>

  <fo:page-sequence master-reference="my-page">
    <fo:flow flow-name="xsl-region-body">
      <fo:block>My text</fo:block>
    </fo:flow>
  </fo:page-sequence>
</fo:root>

a. Basic Transforming

• PDF
• GUI Windows : It will open a dialog box with the transformation result
• MIF
• XML
• PRINT
• PCL
• PS
• TXT
• SVG

b. Repeating the last transformation

For repeating the last transformation the user must activate the "Repeat last transformation" from the "FO" menu. For saving the parameters
it is required to save the document inside a project from the "File" menu.

10. XML Form

The XML Form is a way for editing an XML document using a standard form, it helps users creating or changing an XML document with a minimal knowledge. The form is built using the XML Form Designer inside EditiX. This designer works using a W3C Schema with a mapping system between some schema elements and some form fields.

a. XML Form Designer

Before using the XML Form Designer you need a W3C Schema. We propose this W3C Schema as a sample : purchaseOrder.xsd [HTML documentation]. We are building an XML Form document (*.exf) with our schema.

Step 1 [Preview] : Create a new document (Menu File, New...) and choose "EditiX XML Form Designer".

Step 2 [Preview] : In the left part (Data tab) select your schema inside the "Schema Location" field. You may have to choose a root element because a W3C schema doesn't contain information about the main container element. The document structure contains a tree with your W3C schema content starting from your element root.

Step 3 [Preview] : Drag 'n drop your fields in the main designer part. Your form fields must be bound to the W3C schema structure, it means if you have an element that is a container of other elements, then it must appear in the main designer part as a container field. Each field contains a relative XPath location showing your field location in the final document structure, this is used by EditiX to compute the XML document result.

For customizing your form, you can add labels, separators... using the components tab with a drag'n drop in the main designer. You may also change some components properties using the properties tab like the background or the foreground color... The title properties is only for the container field. You may also edit the XML Form fields switching the source editor, this is useful for some processings like a search/replace.

You may download the final form sample here.

b. XML Form Editor

For using the XML Form editor, it requires an XML Form document (*.exf), look at the previous paragraph for building it.

Step 1 [Preview] : Create a new document (Menu File, New...) and choose "EditiX XML Form Editor ".

The empty document contains a processing instruction "<?xmlform 'YOUR_FORM_PATH'?>". This processing instruction must be set with a path to your XML Form (*.exf). This path can be absolute or relative to your document location (save it firstly for this last case).

As a sample we can save our document in the same directory of our xml form (*.exf) and set the processing instruction with this value :

<?xmlform 'purchaseOrder.exf'?>

Step 2 [Preview] : Switch to the Visual Editor, it will display an XML Form for editing your XML document. You can switch to the source editor for changing the final document, the XML Form will keep any XML added parts (even if there're no fields managing it).

The result documents can be downloaded here.

For loading your XML document and edit it with a form, you must always select the File Filter "EditiX Form Editor" before choosing your XML Document inside the file chooser dialog.

11. Document preview

a. HTML Preview

b. SVG Preview

12. User preferences

• A list of groups
• A list of preferences for the selected group

a. List of user preferences

b. Installing a new XML Parser

1. Copy inside the EDITIX_INSTALL_DIRECTORY/ext/parser directory your jar file(s)
   
2. Modify the xmlconfig / parser preference with your JAXP SAXParser factory class
   
3. Restart EditiX

c. Installing a new XSLT Transformer

1. Copy inside the EDITIX_INSTALL_DIRECTORY/ext/xslt directory your jar file(s)
2. Modify the xmlconfig / xslt preference with your JAXP Tranformer factory class
3. Restart EditiX

1. Download SAXON (http://saxon.sourceforge.net)
2. Copy saxon.jar to the EDITIX_INSTALL_DIRECTORY/ext/xslt directory
   
3. Modify inside the EditiX the preference xmlconfig / transformer with the value com.icl.saxon.TransformerFactoryImpl
4. Restart EditiX

13. EditiX Components

• The Saxon XSLT and XQuery Processor from Saxonica Limited
• JXMLPad a swing component for editing XML from JAPISoft
• JDock a swing docking environment from JAPISoft.
• JResourceBrowser a swing component for browsing FTP,WebDAV,ZIP content from JAPISoft.