3 Ways XML Text View Just Got Better

Though XMLSpy includes a helpful Grid View for visual editing, Text View remains the most popular pane for developers using the XML editor. Intelligent XML editing functionality helps make the job easier, and we’re continuously adding functionality to the XMLSpy Text View to facilitate this.

Let’s look at some new functionality XML developers will have at their disposal starting with Release 3 of XMLSpy 2017.

More Convenient XML Validation Help

XMLSpy includes  Smart Fix XML validation, which provides extensive information about each validation error – as well as options for fixing each error that you can apply automatically, with a single click.

In addition to showing this information in the text view messages window, XMLSpy now also indicated validation errors (indicated by a red exclamation point) and Smart Fix opportunities (a light bulb) in the margin, directly next to the code in question.

You can simply mouse over or click the error indicator to read the validation error and the Smart Fix light bulb for a suggestion to implement a fix to be applied by XMLSpy.

This is especially helpful when working through several validation errors at once, as it’s easy to identify and fix each in turn.

Smart Fix is still a revolutionary approach to troubleshooting and error correction – and now it’s even more convenient.

Multi-line Search

The new, modernized XML Find/Replace dialog  introduced in XMLSpy 2017 now also supports multi-line searches. Though the find functionality in the XML editor has long supported searching via regular expressions, now you can use regex to find and replace XML data that spans multiple lines.

XPath Syntax Coloring in XSLT

Syntax coloring is one of the many advantages of using an intelligent text-based XML editor. Now, in addition to XSL syntax coloring, XPath expressions used in stylesheets now have the same distinct coloring used in the XPath Builder and Tester.

Setting the XPath apart makes it easier to edit new documents and to understand existing code.

Markdown Editor

Text View includes native support for Markdown. The Markdown editor is a convenient way for developers to write documentation, blog post, wikis, and other text-based content in the same IDE they’re using for XML and JSON development.

Get the Latest Version

These are just a few of the new features available in the latest version of XMLSpy.

Update now or download a free, 30-day trial.