DOCBOOK-APPS: Re: Windows editor for DocBook XML that does not messwith files?

[Norman Walsh <ndw at nwalsh dot com>]

/ Dan York <dyork@e-smith.com> was heard to say:
| Beyond being something that she can be comfortable working with,
| my technical concern is that I do not want the tool to mess with
| the formatting of the XML file.

While I fully understand your desire for this feature, I submit that
it is a slightly unreasonable requirement for an XML editing tool. I
expect all editors convert documents into an internal representation
that is more or less DOM-like. DTD- or Schema-aware tools are almost
certainly going to discard insignificant whitespace.

It's natural and reasonable for them to discard this space as it's not
really "there".

Asking an XML editor to preserve insignificant whitespace and provide
structured editing is a tall order. I can't imagine very many
implementors who would find the small benefit of preserving the
authors original formatting worth the considerable additional
implementation overhead.

| I do everything in CVS and will
| be setting her up with WinCVS to access the repository.  I want
| an editor that will suck in an XML file, let her edit it, and 
| then write it out without changing spacing, indentation (i.e. 
| doing anything to "pretty up" the code).

You might be better off setting up some sort of filter that always
reformats the XML source in a consistent way.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>      | The irrational is not necessarily
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/ | unreasonable.--Sir Lewis Namier
Chair, DocBook Technical Committee |