One of the features, a compound XML document editor, lets developers generate documents containing multiple formats, such as text, graphics, and voice.
Although there are numerous XML editors for producing documents in dialects such as Voice XML, IBM claims that this is the first tool with the ability to merge different rendering formats in the same document.
IBM is also releasing an XML forms generator that can be used for exposing web services via the WSDL (Web Services Description Language) standard. The tools are being made available for free download to developers via the IBM AlphaWorks portal as part of a strategy to cultivate developer support of Eclipse tools.
IBM’s tools join a growing list of XML editors, many of which are available as open source programs or add-ons to development environments such as Microsoft Visual Studio.
Additionally, full-function commercial tools such as Altova’s XML Suite provide comprehensive capabilities, ranging from graphical XML schema editors and automated schema validation to XSLT (XML Style transformations), Xpath (a language for describing the structure of an XML document), XQuery and automated mapping of data to EDI or relational databases.
In a related development, IBM is proposing XML enhancements for Java to the Java Community Process (JCP). Under the proposed extensions, objects in XML documents could be read without parsing the entire document.
With this feature, Java XML parsers could focus simply on objects that have changed instead reading everything, a capability that could speed performance. The proposal is being floated to the JCP, which has not yet decided whether to approve a formal JSR (Java Standards request) effort.
