XML Software

As with all other web technologies, the kind of software you decide to use when writing XML depends entirely on personal taste. As in HTML you can choose between products ranging from simple text editors to specialised, commercial, software. And as in all other software cases, the most expensive editor is not always the best choice. If you are completely new to XML, I would recommend starting out with a regular text editor, just to learn things "the hard way". Once you feel confident with XML, you can always change to a more specialised XML Editor. XML Software is covered in greater detail in the XML Tutorial.

TextPad 32-bit Edition

TextPad is a professional text editor for Windows (Win95/NT 3.51 or higher). The current release (4.2.2.) is available in English, Ducth, French, German, Italian and Japanese versions. TextPad is shareware and the version available at the web site is a 30-day evaluation copy. A licence for TextPad costs $27 (30/05/2000).

Online XML Validation Service

Hosted by the Scholarly Technology Group at Brown University, this online parser provides an excellent alternative to downloading and using one locally. The main reason for this is the fact that you get understandable error messages if validation fails. This is not always the case with other parsers. The only drawback here is that your files have to reside on a web server if you use external DTD's in your documents.

XMLSoftware.com

This site offers an up-to-date list of most commercial XML Software available. The software is divided into categories, and a short description (but no rating) is given for each product, along with version number and a link to the manufacturer's home page. The site also has has excellent sections covering general XML and XSL development.

Free XML Tools and Software

This site offers a comprehensive list of FREE XML tools and software. Free in this context means software that is fully functional for an unlimited amount of time. The pages are maintained by Lars Martin Garshol, a former informatics student at the University of Oslo. His home page also contains a number of excellent XML-related articles (some are in Norwegian, but most are in English).

Next : An XML Tutorial