The Bottom Line
XMLSpy is a great XML editor. If you're looking value, you can get the Standard edition. The professional edition is a great value, with only a few less features than the Enterprise edition. And if you have need for support of Web services and Office XML then you could get the Enterprise edition.
Pros
- Validates, checks well-formedness, and parses XML and XML data files
- Includes pre-built templates and support for XHTML, MathML, SVG, XSLT, and many more
- The viewer makes it very easy to see what you're doing
- There is also a grid view to see the XML
- Good editing, search, and extensibility
Cons
- I couldn't find source code control - it had to be pointed out to me
Description
- Schema validation and well-formedness testing
- Tag completion, color coding, and syntax checking
- XSLT editor and debugging
- XML Schema editor and the ability to test other XML documents against those schema
- Database and international support
- XPath, XQuery, and SOAP support
- CSS, MathML, XHTML, and SVG document templates
- Preview window with built-in parser
- Macros and other extensibility features
Guide Review - XMLSpy Enterprise 2008
XMLSpy comes in three versions, and there is one to suit nearly every need and budget. It is one of the best XML editors available. It has tons of great features and makes editing XML very easy to do. What I like:
- Writing XML is as easy as with a good HTML text editor. Tags auto-complete, and it corrects errors you make when you're typing.
- When you try to save a document with problems, an error pops up telling you what the problem is. This helps you avoid issues like un-escaped ampersands and other hidden issues.
- It will build a schema for you from an XML document. This is a great way to learn XML schemas as well as generate a schema quickly from existing XML.
- You can run XSLT transformations right inside XMLSpy. This can help with debugging as well as learning XSLT.
- There is support in the form of templates, tools, and help for lots of different XML documents.
What I wish it had (or I couldn't easily find):
- RSS templates - There were RDF templates and the ability to create a new RDF document, but not RSS. (There is a free RSS template that you can download for use with Altova XMLSpy.)
- Version control - I would love to see built-in version control, or at least support for external version control tools like Subversion.
- More wizards - if you're new to XML this editor can be very overwhelming. It would be difficult for a newcomer to figure out what all the features are for and how to use them.
Edited to add: Source code control is configured through the XMLSpy Project menu (Project/Source Control).
Did you find this useful?
You can get more articles and information like this by subscribing to the site newsletter or RSS feed.
