Talk:Comparison of XML editors

Sort By Name Column
Anyone know how to have the grid automatically sort by the name column? Think it would be better like that?

Added QXmlEdit
I added QXmlEdit. and the other document has Does it even make sense to do this ??? The merge rules are a lot more complex, e.g. when to write contained elements into a single instance vs. separate. I am pretty sure there is no way to tell whether or not these two examples are talking about the same thing or are totally orthogonal and should not be merged.
 * Just what does WYSIWYG mean when talking about an XML editor? That you can edit a document that uses XML file format and includes markup, like XHTML, DITA, DocBook, or Open Document Text files?
 * Diff isn't too hard to figure out, well, except it is. Diff may be just based on character/line comparison like output from diff, but in XML you can have identical content that has different file contents, e.g. comments, non-printing white space between elements, etc.  Diff also might refer to what it is you need to do transform to get from document A to document B.
 * Merge on the other hand...is a bit of an odd concept, since what do you do with two documents that an element with the same name (with or without namespace), but which maybe have different optional components. How do you merge if they have different mandatory attributes?  Are these then two separate elements or do you munge them together. What if document 1 has element and document two has and document one has elements

Features that make sense to include but are not on this list

 * One thing that should be clear up front is whether or not an XML editor is schema aware, and does that mean DTD, XSD, RELAX-NG, and/or Schematron?
 * An obvious GUI feature would be XForms support (i.e. it can read an XForm and render it, and hopefully even deal with submission, as well as the various live data features)
 * Some editors have built in support for XSLT
 * The diff of an XML document, and the diff between two XML Schema are very different animals
 * XPath search is swell, when it takes to you where in an XML document it is, but sometimes it really helpful to write an XPath and get the result set. These are very different features.
 * Many XML editors will gripe if your XML is not well-formed. Some will complain if it doesn't validate (and again, validate against what?  You can validate against an XSD and fail validation vs. Schematron, for example (happens all the time, which is why we have Schematron since it can say things that XSD just cannot).
 * I think integration with other tools you have is a nifty feature. Some, e.g. the KDE default text editor, Kate, can do a lot of what is listed on here (including stuff that isn't, like validation vs. schema), and it can also integrate with a range of other tools on the desktop (e.g. XMLSTARLET, any command line XSLT/XSL e.g. sablot, diffmk, which generates an HTML diff of two documents, livedtd which converts a DTD into HTML, tidy/tidyp which can do a lot to an xml document, xmlformat, xmlto which converts XML formats to other things, etc.  This makes Kate into a pretty handy XML editor.
 * other tools include xmllint, xmlparse, xmlsec1
 * Conversion of XML documents to JSON, CSV, YAML is also helpful
 * Finally, support for XQuery is a big deal if you use an XML database

untitled
First, I am sorry to have edited this article not in sync with the policies. But I am not responsable for the vandalism by IP 85.241.113.219, although it took place nearly the same time. As other commerical products are also listed I wanted to add the two products that are now available in English. I am the author of these products. I understand that wikipedia should not be the place for advertisement but would it be able to add information on this software under the following circumstances...?


 * internal pages for each of the products that shortly describe them
 * no promotial language, just neutral descriptions
 * external links only on the product pages
 * description limited to the main points so that the user itself can justify about the value

What makes the applications special is also the approach to edit XML as a tree of nodes, not character by character. Although similar solutions have been released, they show another fresh way to edit XML.

Please discuss about my request and clarify the possibilites to place information about the XML editors.

Marvin7362 (talk) 09:46, 6 June 2009 (UTC)


 * One of the main criteria for inclusion on Wikipedia is notability as established by third-party reliable sources. So even if you use a neutral language to describe the applications, it may still not be sufficient to add them to the list. I would suggest you request for the articles to be created here and see what others think. Laurent (talk) 10:31, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Requested addition
May I suggest to add a columns "DITA support" as well as "DOCBOOK support" in the sense of supporting subject matter experts to author technical documentation or similar with the editor using one of the given standards (versus XML geek editing any XML file)

I know PTC Arbortext which was EPIC Editor before which is not in the list.

✅ Could someone please add the following? I would prefer to not make this edit myself due to conflict of interest, although I think it's an obvious addition. XMetaL has been a popular XML editor for 10 years with 74,500 Google hits for "XMetaL XML editor". Walk Up Trees (talk) 18:58, 8 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Walk Up Trees (talk) 18:58, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Suggested addition: XMLmind
XMLmind is an xml editor that is used for technical documentation, and in particular unsing DocBook and DITA.

Note: I do not put it right now on the main page, because I am not sure there are not enough product listed. XMLmind is however relatively well positionned in Google (at least for me).

Note: a reference:

--Nabeth (talk) 09:30, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Suggested addition: EditiX
EditiX is a general and multiplatform xml editor. It has a free edition too, includes a visual schema editor and a lot of tools about XML.

Note: a reference:


 * Added. As well as the reference.
 * Note: it would be good if we were able to identify neutral references for each XML editor.
 * --Nabeth (talk) 16:51, 30 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I think the reference for EditX is not enough. The editor is only mentioned in a list among many other XML editors. We need a proper review in a magazine or website so I've removed it for now, but feel free to put it back if you can find a reliable source. In general, I think it would be better to create an actual article (even a stub) so that the notability can be challenged in a proper AFD. Laurent (talk) 16:29, 8 November 2009 (UTC)


 * There's a book reference (at least one, but found several others book reference too) on this tool, this is enough for being mentionned. Here a magazin in french about it : http://www.puce-et-media.com/index.php/Articles/xml-et-la-distribution-sur-differents-supports.html. Found several training center using this tool : http://www.ledet.com/other/?vendor=Editix&product=XML. Here an article on it : http://www.soutou.net/christian/telechargements/debutXML-cours2008.pdf. Another book : http://izibook.eyrolles.com/extract/show/459. There's a lot more, m I asking where did you search it ?????? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.206.40.130 (talk) 11:36, 9 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The EditX article has been deleted here. If you feel it shouldn't have been deleted then convince the admin to restore it, not me. In the meantime, as long as the article remains deleted, I'll keep removing the links. Notability is far from obvious and listing links where EditX is barely mentioned is not going to convince anybody. Laurent (talk) 11:41, 9 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Why Laurent did you delete the article too ??? Are you working for a concurrent company or what ?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.72.215.50 (talk) 18:20, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

This tool must not be deleted because there're serious references on it : Article of the university of Minho with Editix reference : http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:wtJFDq-JxREJ:alfa.di.uminho.pt/~danieladacruz/CISTI09xqbe.pdf+editix+xml+article&hl=en&sig=AFQjCNFoRykc0-qtlcBgWLtwDobrpJqd2A Article of the university of EDINBURGH with EditiX reference about TEI : http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:bOPvxzg0pO8J:www.researcherdevelopment.ed.ac.uk/RLIF/Lab_Digital_Philology_Report.pdf+xml+training+editix&cd=29&hl=en&ct=clnk Mac article with Editix reference : http://macproductionartist.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/xml-indesign-oxygen/ XSLT article with EditiX link in the Tools part : http://www.wordiq.com/definition/XSLT Trainings : http://www.ledet.com/other/?vendor=Editix&product=XML http://www.accelebrate.com/xml_training/ Education portal with EditiX : http://tecfa.unige.ch/guides/xml/pointers.html Local Wiki with EditiX reference : http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/XML_editor Blog post : http://www.xmltoday.org/taxonomy/term/10 Books : XML: Visual QuickStart Guide : http://books.google.com/books?id=485Ol3iv2tAC&pg=PA247&dq=editix&ei=JbD5Stb3EJKkNeGJrOgO#v=onepage&q=editix&f=false Eclipse Book : http://books.google.com/books?id=vxMDuxmSKTsC&pg=PA766&dq=editix&lr=&ei=d7D5SpqhCJmkM5rNtIcP#v=onepage&q=editix&f=false Java 5 French Book : http://books.google.com/books?id=qD8UMCSf_V8C&pg=PA79&dq=editix&ei=JbD5Stb3EJKkNeGJrOgO#v=onepage&q=editix&f=false Java 6 French Book : http://books.google.com/books?id=Rn_L89cQ7XoC&pg=PT86&dq=editix&ei=JbD5Stb3EJKkNeGJrOgO#v=onepage&q=editix&f=false Ruby Book : http://books.google.com/books?id=oiLzZCFnh78C&pg=PT241&dq=editix&lr=&ei=d7D5SpqhCJmkM5rNtIcP#v=onepage&q=editix&f=false —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.72.215.50 (talk) 18:41, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Autocompletion Feature
Is there a clear definition of the meaning of the (Boolean value) column "Intellisense/Autocompletion"? Would an XML editor that provides simple tag completion meet this criterion? What does the phrase "using schema.xsd for text" mean? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Markjleonard (talk • contribs) 18:37, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Proprietary Bias
Seems slanted. I believe there are free facilities in Emacs, nxml-mode for example and Eclipse (many) that can be added. I think the priced ones will come out as doing more but the info should be here on the free ones. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 20:51, 12 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Just added XML Exchanger (xngr). Used to be commercial, but it's free since the 2010's. It's the only free XML Editor I consider somewhat usable, i.e. it can read DTD (editing support), validate against DTD and XSD and provides XSLT support. Someone even fixed some code during a Google summer code. For Windows 10, you have to adjust the DPI settings in the Windows properties. Not tested on Mac, runs OK under Ubuntu 18, but I don't know how to change the DPI settings (screen resolution) for a single application. Fonts can be adjusted though. - Daniel K. Schneider 14:39, 25 September 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Daniel K. Schneider (talk • contribs)

Suggested addition: Geany
Non of the editors matched my requirements for XML folding but Geany is pretty nice. Small, GUI, GPL...
 * https://www.geany.org/
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geany — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.122.104.243 (talk) 09:47, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Suggested addition: XML Copy Editor
On internet this page What are the best XML Editors? recommends another tool: XML Copy Editor. It is free software and translated in several languages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mdarge (talk • contribs) 10:25, 20 March 2020 (UTC) Her is another comparision of XML editors 14 Best XML Editor Software, Best Free XML Editor for Windows – 8 Alternatives, Alternatives to XML Copy Editor and TreeLine Alternatives --Mdarge (talk) 10:41, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Suggested addition: Fonto XML Editor
I'm missing the Fonto XML Editor in this overview. It has been here before and is a web-based XML editor that is on the market since 2013. It's used for processing DITA and XML content in legislation, techdoc, educational publishing, publishing, life sciences and finance.

See the following external resources, that mention Fonto as a relevant XML editor:
 * https://blog.csoftintl.com/4-top-xml-editing-software/
 * https://www.ditawriter.com/interview-with-jan-benedictus-of-fontoxml/
 * https://archive.xmlprague.cz/2018/files/presentations/Multi-Layer_Content_Modelling_to_the_Rescue.pdf
 * http://dita-archive.xml.org/product/fontoxml-webbased-xml-editor

Request to extend information: Wellformed and Validate and filesizes to be managed
For me an important checkpoint is if the tool could proof "wellformed" or if the xml-file is "valid". In my office I have on several workstations Altova XMLSpy available to check the file. notepad++ and its extention does not work very sensitive (I've a lot of files which are checked by notepad++ to be valid which is not confirmed by XMLSpy). notepad++ seems to have limitations on the size of files and on complexity of xsd-files (i. e. structured into several files). 2A02:908:1C4:4620:6C00:905B:DD27:DC72 (talk) 13:33, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Anyone's having experience or information on xml-buddy?
In the internet you find marketing pages on https://www.xml-buddy.com/ 2A02:908:1C4:4620:6C00:905B:DD27:DC72 (talk) 13:36, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Smartphone XML editors
This article focuses on desktop editors.

Any similar info for smartphone editors? I am most interested in iPhone XML or similar editors. CuriousMarkE (talk) 17:50, 20 March 2024 (UTC)