Saturday, December 30, 2006

I've fixed few bugs today and improved the xpath support. I will remove all unready features and fix them until they are ready. My main problem is now multiline tokens for syntax coloring!
The auto-close tag mode is ready for XML. I have to find a way for auto-completion and put it as simple as possible.

Friday, December 29, 2006

XPath support is on the way!




Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Hi,

I plan to create the last release candidate of XPontus XML Editor in january. I am still working on the lexer and I am doing fine. After much pain, I feel like I can breathe again. There is still work to do for the new syntax coloring framework which will be based on Javacc . I don't want to add antlr jars as dependencies and javacc seems faster.

Here is what is planned for the upcoming release :
  • Fix all the existing bugs
  • Add all the features requests
  • XPATH and XQUERY support
  • Add the awaited XML code completion based on a DTD or a schema
  • Add auto-close tags for XML syntax
  • Show the XML code structure in an outline view window
  • Handle correctly multiline comments for syntax coloring and fix some lexer bugs
  • Use grammar caching for batch validation
  • True lexer support for syntax coloring using Javacc. (html, xml, properties files, java, c, c++, sql, idl, php, dtd and xquery files are recognized).
  • Add the basis of a plugin framework and get ready for a big code cleanup.
Here is a screenshot of the latest developments.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

I am still coding! Here is an updated screenshot of the devel version using antlr for syntax coloring. I have to find a way to handle multiline comments, maybe in a PlainDocument.

The syntax coloring parser is still in development but as you can see, I am making progress...

Saturday, December 16, 2006

I am almost done with the code refractoring of XPontus. I've been playing with antlr and met some interesting guys on IRC. I want to provide the new release before christmas and add all the features that have been requested. Hopefully code completion will be ready in time. At this moment I am getting used to antlr lexer support.

As antlr3 gives me the offset of a token(keyword, etc.) in a line I think I will switch from jedit syntax package to antlr3. The code completion will be based on sidekick plugin from Jedit. The dtd are stored in a cache and a list of possible values are built based on the current token.

Here is a screenshot using an antlr based lexer

Sunday, November 05, 2006

I am refractoring XPontus code. Maybe at the end of the month I will have something to release. If there is anything that you would like to see in the last release candidate, it is time to ask. I will do my best to add it as a feature.

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Yes I am still maintaining XPontus XML Editor!

I've been really busy at work. I didn't have time to work on XPontus XML Editor . I will try to create a new release in november. My main concern is code completion. Any decent IDE or code editor has code completion :-).
Some people have sent me features request about XPontus. I will add them in the next release. It doesn't bother me to receive emails but I would like to see some features requests at the sourceforge project page :-). Except the number of downloads and the homepage, it doesn't look that active! I hope I will be able to add a plugin framework for the last release candidate xpontus-1.0.0rc2.

I've been learning Python last week. It is a pretty good language and it is very simple. I've been programming few GUIs using XrCed and WxPython. I still have few problems but I will find a way... I miss java interfaces, but hopefully the Zope project has something called zopeinterface. I will soon digg into it.
For Web programming the only interesting frameworks I would like to work with are Turbogears or Django.

I will try to learn a little bit of Perl next week :-)

Friday, July 28, 2006

I am testing Antlr as syntax lexer. I tried the SATC Framework which is based on Antlr and performs syntax highlighting on Java text components. I have to fix a lot of bugs and I am not sure that I will use Antlr at the end. My next try will be Javacc if I don't succeed.
I don't feel like writing every thing from scratch, but will do if I have no other choice using JFlex, Javacc or Antlr.

Here is a screenshot of XPontus-Devel. It is not good enough for syntax highlighting. I am using SATC for now.


Here is the status of XPontus XML Editor :
  • Bug fixes and improvements are complete
  • I change the Spring framework configuration file from XML format to plain text. It should reduce the startup time.
  • I need to remove unused files and reuse more code
  • Add file encoding detection : DONE
  • Replace JTidy by NekoHTML to clean HTML code : DONE
  • Add a schema generator/converter(XML, DTD, Relax NG, XML Shema) : DONE
  • Use a true lexer for syntax highlighting, code completion and outline view of the code: WORK IN PROGRESS.

Thursday, July 27, 2006

XPontus XML Editor project is doing all right. Hopefully I am not downloading every file :-). It is pleasant to see that some people are testing or using my software. The real problem is now syntax highlighting and code completion using true lexer support(javacc, antlr or jflex). I would like to use antlr or javacc to provide the code structure generation(outline view of the code).

Yves! What are you doing? Let's get back to coding!

Saturday, July 15, 2006

The code of XPontus is now in the SVN repository of sourceforge.

Friday, July 14, 2006

I have finished the new release of XPontus XML Editor 1.0.0RC1. Still a long way to go.
http://xpontus.sf.net

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Java and user settings

I'm now closer to the RC1 release of XPontus XML Editor(http://xpontus.sf.net).
  • I discover JGoodies Bindings(https://binding.dev.java.net/) usefulness today! It is better than using the observer pattern all the time.
  • I am using XStream(http://xstream.codehaus.org/) to save and reader the user's preferences. XStream is better than simple serialization in my opinion. With xstream you avoid incompatibilities between serializations according to the java version the user have(ie 1.3, 1.4 or 1.5).
There is still much to do:
  • Correct the XSLT scenarios settings for the new API
  • Check the code consistency
  • Verify if there aren't bugs left due to all the modifications in the API
  • Check if all existing functions are working well before adding new features

Monday, May 29, 2006

I am looking back again at java web development and it looks like i never done any web development in java :-). I am now more productive in swing than in web development using any popular framework.
I will investigate in jsf, tapestry and wicket, spring mvc. Those seem to be the main technologies you get to work with nowadays.