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Vex – open-source visual editor for XML

62 points| pabs3 | 4 years ago |eclipse.org

49 comments

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[+] jahewson|4 years ago|reply
By far the best tool I've encountered in this category is Fonto [1]. Product demo is a video but it's worth your time if you like rich text editors.

[1] https://www.fontoxml.com/fonto-xml-editor/

[+] TuringTest|4 years ago|reply
Zettlr does almost the same*; and it's markdown based so you can get non-technical users working with raw code without freaking out, thanks to its in-place preview.

* (as long as what you really need is technical writing, and you don't need that magical unicorn of a complex DTD componentized content reusing).

It's also open source, which helps with integrating it in any DevOps workflow you want to use for your documentation.

[1] https://www.zettlr.com/

[+] rickstanley|4 years ago|reply
~41% of my screen is taken from header and cookie banner, damn... (in Firefox with the new design's whitespace)
[+] somedangedname|4 years ago|reply
With a couple of extra features this would make a great editing experience for a CMS.
[+] dfee|4 years ago|reply
There’s an embedded video (https://vimeo.com/58346326) that’s worth watching.

Honestly, I’m amazed that this fit anyone’s development workflow in 2018 - when the last commit was supplied.

[+] stickfigure|4 years ago|reply
Wow. I actually really like XML and that demo fills me with apprehension.
[+] marcodiego|4 years ago|reply
In the era when everybody imagined that xml was the future of configuration files, some xml editor flourished probably inspired by the possibility of becoming "generic configuration tools". I could find these from that time: http://qxmledit.org/ and http://kxmleditor.sourceforge.net/screenshots/screenshots.ht...
[+] guessbest|4 years ago|reply
Everytime I see KDE and Konqueror I wish I could make it work on the mac. The KDE system in the mid 2000's was way ahead of everyone else in opensource.
[+] sydthrowaway|4 years ago|reply
Why did xml lose to yaml/json?
[+] space_ghost|4 years ago|reply
Oh man, I actually used KXML Editor back in the day. Those screenshots give me The Feels. :)
[+] simbas|4 years ago|reply
Looks like an alternative to OxygenXML, but a lot less refined. Anyways, good work, I'll be trying it out!
[+] TuringNYC|4 years ago|reply
Anyone remember XMLSpy?
[+] wilsonfiifi|4 years ago|reply
I can't believe Altova is still in the game! They must have a loyal base of enterprise users. It's quite shocking they haven't bothered to make an official MacOS or Linux version after all these years.
[+] rjsw|4 years ago|reply
I work with several people who use it.
[+] sporedro|4 years ago|reply
Interesting, just wondering are people still using eclipse often for its extensibility?

I checked a year ago or 2 on the plug-in situation and it sorta looked like a abandoned wasteland. IntelliJ seems to have absorbed most Java devs, while new tools such as VScode are the new go to for customization.

It even feels like eclipse foundation was abandoning eclipse a bit, as it’s pushing its web based tools…

[+] pjmlp|4 years ago|reply
Not only extensibility.

Incremental compiler, ability to do mix language development and debugging for JNI, shortcuts I don't need both hands, automatically displaying errors with me having to trigger inspections, javadoc displayed without having to configure it, my laptop does sound like a propeller plane, ...

[+] rjsw|4 years ago|reply
I'm working on a project that uses a SysML editor built on top of eclipse, other people have written plugins to do checking and evaluation of models for it.
[+] 1MachineElf|4 years ago|reply
Eclipse was my go-to XML editor for the year during which my first computer job was to edit XML files.
[+] nayuki|4 years ago|reply
I wonder if this can help with writing XHTML web pages?
[+] keithnz|4 years ago|reply
cool! great stuff, though I do feel a little pity for those who actually need the tool. I've mostly eliminated XML from my life, just a few holdouts.
[+] holdenc137|4 years ago|reply
XML you say? Send Vex it to the past, where it is most needed. ;)
[+] corty|4 years ago|reply
All the Java world is still firmly stuck in XML-land. So a better XML editor in Eclipse is right where it is needed.
[+] ComodoHacker|4 years ago|reply
Does it require Eclipse?
[+] rjsw|4 years ago|reply
Doing it on top of NetBeans would have been more portable but the documentation for XML handling in NetBeans isn't very good.
[+] victorbstan|4 years ago|reply
1999 called it wants its Java back.
[+] seanw444|4 years ago|reply
1972 called. It wants its C back.

I'm not a fan of Java either, but age of origin doesn't mean anything about a programming language. Python in concept is older than Java and is still considered modern.

[+] pjmlp|4 years ago|reply
It is running on my pocket and wrist watch, what about those newly fashion languages?