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Microsoft XML Notepad 2007

xml-notepad-2007.png

Microsoft has released the latest version of XML Notepad, a pretty cool app for working with XML files in a manner far more capable than your usual Windows Notepad. My first impressions tell me that is a great tool for anybody who has to work with XML in Windows, although I’d still like to see Microsoft release a web-optimized version of Notepad that handled HTML/CSS and the like, color-coding the source as it went.

One cool thing: It comes with some sample files, to give you an idea of how the program handles, and one of them is the full play of Hamlet written entirely in XML.

XML Notepad 2007 features:

Handy features include:

  • Tree View synchronized with Node Text View for quick editing of node names and values.
  • Incremental search (Ctrl+I) in both tree and text views, so as you type it navigates to matching nodes.
  • Cut/copy/paste with full namespace support.
  • Drag/drop support for easy manipulation of the tree, even across different instances of XML Notepad and from the file system.
  • Infinite undo/redo for all edit operations.
  • In place popup multi-line editing of large text node values.
  • Configurable fonts and colors via the options dialog.
  • Full find/replace dialog with support for regex and XPath.
  • Good performance on large XML documents, loading a 3mb document in about one second.
  • Instant XML schema validation while you edit with errors and warnings shown in the task list window.
  • Intellisense based on expected elements and attributes and enumerated simple type values.
  • Support for custom editors for date, dateTime and time datatypes and other types like color.
  • Handy nudge tool bar buttons for quick movement of nodes up and down the tree.
  • Inplace HTML viewer for processing xml-stylesheet processing instructions.
  • Built-in XML Diff tool.

New features included in this version:

  • Added keyboard accelerators for find again (F3) and reverse find (SHIFT+F3).
  • Added support for loading IXmlBuilder and IXmlEditor implementations from different assemblies using new vs:assembly attribute.
  • Made source code localizable by moving all error messages and dialog strings to .resx files.
  • Added a default XSL transform.
  • New icons, a play on the Vista “Notepad” icons.

Bug Fixes included in this version:

  • Fixed install on Windows Vista machines using Windows Installer XML 3.0.
  • Performance of expand node when validating.
  • Fixed bug where changed schemas and transforms were not being re-loaded.
  • Fixed spurious warnings about file being changed on disk.
  • Fixed handling of very long text nodes.
  • Fixed round trip of DTD content in < !DOCTYPE> tags.
  • Fixed validation of elements with xsi:type attributes.
  • Scroll bar not updating when node expanded/collapsed in some cases.
  • Tree view needs horizontal scrollbar.
  • When XML Notepad is minimized and file changes on disk, the file reload prompt is confusing. Notepad should be restored first.
  • XSL output window should pick up new xsl-transform based on input document.
  • Fixed unhandled exception when closing a group of XML notepad windows.
  • Added registration of “Edit” action for .xml file extension.
  • Move source code to CodePlex.

(via Bink)

November 26th, 2006 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | General, Developers | one comment
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1 Comment »

  1. Seeing as XHTML is XML (right?), it should be capable of modern webdesign.

    Looks like a neat little app. Not sure I like the ‘play on the Vista “Notepad” icons’ though ;-)

    Comment by Tim | 11/27/2006

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