XML Editors
version: 1.0date: 2001-11-25 16:08:13
Comparison of XML editors circa 2001
13.04.2001
Overview
One of the identified requirements for the Tequiza project is an XML/webforms editor. I have evaluated the top offerings for the Windows operating system, which is our target audience. As a basis for comparison and with the idea in mind that down the road there may be a need to offer a non-windows version I also looked at the several unix offerings.
Functional requirements
A robust environment for editing existing XML and HTML documents, target platform is Windows 95/98. Must be user friendly, the target audience is likely a content manager or pr person rather than a serious coder.Breakdown of editors
Several open source editors targeted at the linux platform were included for comparison. Note that any editors that say Unix should work on all major flavors (HP-UX, AIX, Solaris, *BSD, GNU/Linux, Mac OS-X).
Athens (Win)-This editor is essentially Notepad with some bells and whistles and a toolbar. The UI is low quality, and does not present the sort of professional look and feel that is needed for an OEM'd application. While this might be useful for someone who is very familiar with XML it is of little use to the target audience.
Aweb Developer (Win)- This application aims to be a full featured web development environment and falls short of the mark by several yards. The interface is not completely horrible but is also not acceptable for our purposes. The sole instance of XML support is a set of Miva tags. Error messages seem to be a poorly understood concept here, and it would be fairly intimidating for a non-technical user.
Breeze Factor (Win/Unix) - A very powerful and full featured XML IDE, though the UI isn't quite friendly enough for non-technical users. Database interaction is solid and easy to use. $495/seat, volume pricing is available.
Dreamweaver (Win/Mac)- The interface for Dreamweaver will seem a little unfamiliar to many Windows users at first (toolbars and workspaces floating above the desktop in a very Mac/X-like manner rather than within their own contained frame) but other than that it is a very robust and friendly application. Once the end users are comfortable with the UI, they would have little trouble accomplishing their tasks quickly and easily. The learning curve for this app is about average for a commercial Windows application (e.g. once the concepts of the application are understood, daily use is fairly simple). The lone downside to Dreamweaver is it's tendency to protect the user from too much information about what they are doing. It is bundled with Allaire's Homesite, which the more technical people will be inclined to use instead.
EditML (Win)- Slightly more full-featured than Athens, this features perhaps the most graceless error handling I've seen outside of outright crashing the application. Novices to XML will be frightened, more advanced users will be frustrated by the lack of any useful features.
FrameMaker (Win/Unix/Mac) - Overkill. Framemaker is a fantastic, full featured, reasonably user friendly application that is so far much more than what is needed that it would be cost-prohibitive and downright foolish to OEM it.
GEXml (Win/Unix) - A Java based open source xml editor. This stays true to the traditional unix approach of do one thing and do it well. The user interface is simply a text editor with a resources pane and a few tabs for attributes and the like. Fine for more technical users who are very familiar with XML. The one downside is that which is inherent with most non-commercial Java application, and that is performance. Windows has probably the best JVM outside of the Solaris and HP-UX ones, and the performance is still less than what you might expect. In theory this would work on the Mac as well, but anything Java based on the Mac is a tremendously bad idea, as Mac easily has the worst JVM out there (unless, possibly, there is an Atari Jaguar JVM I'm unaware of).
Homesite (Win) - A very very full featured text editor. This is one of the best web editors out there for coders, but it isn't user friendly enough for the average non-coder user. You can create your own xml toolbar which makes point-and-click work with xml very easy. This now comes bundled with Dreamweaver 4, and together they are a great combo, with DW being the one that the non-coders would use.
IceSculptor (Unix)- Bills itself as a complete desktop publishing app. The UI is similar to an old version of MS Publish or perhaps PageMaker. Performance is simply unacceptable even on a powerful box. While it could, in theory, be used for editing XML docs and webforms, it is not advisable. This however the first release of this product, so when it comes time to evaluate a non-windows partner this might be worth looking at again, as their more mature products are quite nice.
LeanEdit (Unix) - As with most of the non-Windows offerings, this is targeted towards more technical people. This is a solid entry, performs well, but the UI simply isn't intuitive and it doesn't offer enough functionality to meet the needs of this project.
Morphon (Unix)- This is probably the most solid of the non-Windows apps. Comparable to Homesite or ScriptWorx, this also suffers from a slightly intimidating attribute editor interface but other than that it is a serious contender in terms of functionality and stability.
Popkin (Win) - Envision is a new entry into the field, with a pleasant UI and reasonable functionality, though there is no database piece as of this time.
ScriptWorx (Win) - This editor achieves what Aweb attempts, and does it rather nicely. Certainly on par with Homesite, but still not quite user friendly enough for the target audience.
XmetaL (Win)- The first and still the best (though Dreamweaver is a very, very close second). SoftQuad has a long history of SGML applications that are user friendly and extremely powerful. The downside is one inherent in all of their products that I've used: they are resource hogs. They will run on a PII-400 with 64M of RAM, but I wouldn't recommend it. Windows users will be able to quickly and easily understand the interface, and it is easy to access granular views of the documents.
XML Junction (Win)- I'm not entirely sure what this product is meant to be, it seems to be sort of a hybrid visio-clone/xml editor. Avoid. It isn't particularly good at either and the user interface was apparently designed with the intent of causing mental anguish. The only way it makes sense if they plan on charging for support calls, which will be numerous.
Conclusion
The offerings are wildly varied in terms of functionality and quality. The shareware and open source offerings are not as mature nor as full featured as the commercial ones, and the UI suffers as a result. Given the target audience the best choices for the Windows platform would be XmetaL 2.1 from Softquad or Dreamweaver 4 from Macromedia.
