XML Support in NetBeans IDE
Netbeans 6.0 comes bundled with a rich set of tools to work with various XML documents such as
XML Schema, WSDL, BPEL, XSLT, CSS, DTD and XML instance documents. The tools provide various ways of editing, visualizing
these documents. In addition it also provides refactoring support, search, queries and find usage, seamless navigation
between views, design pattern and schema aware code completion support to name a few.
Here are some highlights with pictures:
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| Allows easy creation and navigation of complex schema hierarchies |
Rapidly designs complexType and element definitions, even across multi-file schemas |
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| Find uses, rename, and safely delete across XML Schema, WSDL, and BPEL documents |
Apply design patterns to existing schemas |
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| Allows easy creation and navigation of WSDL documents |
Provide dynamic schema driven code completion |
Downloads & Current Status
Learn More about XML tools
For a quick overview of XML schema tools, watch our overview video. To start learning about the tools, see Getting Started with XML Schema Tools.
Demo
Take a video tour of the XML tools in NetBeans. You can use the
accompanying workbook to reproduce the actions demonstrated in the video.
Technical Articles
This article explains schema aware code completion in XML documents.
Through a video, this article shows you, step by step, how to write XML schemas by visualizing them as instance documents in the Design view. This article also describes the Design view's advantages over other similar tools.
With NetBeans 6.0, building large schemas that span across multiple files and namespaces is a cakewalk, thanks to the IDE's capabilities that are specifically targeted for that purpose. This article shows you how to reference, retrieve, and catalog external schemas; resolve references; look up mappings; and build and validate multifile schemas.
An IDE like the NetBeans 6.0 can analyze XML schemas and delineate their structure, contents, and the relationships among the components. Read about the query capabilities in the Early Access release and the enhancements in the works.
Choosing the appropriate pattern is a key step in the design phase of the development cycle for XML schemas. In this article, you learn the definitions for the four most common pattern types and their advantages and disadvantages. It also explains how NetBeans 6.0 displays, detects, and maintains those patterns, greatly simplifying a multitude of cumbersome and error-prone tasks.
Learn how to create multifile XML schemas with import and include statements. Read Part 1 for the basics of namespace programming.
Learn about XML namespaces and their interactions with XML schemas. This article introduces the basic principles with examples.
Tutorials
Take a tour of the functionality in the XML schema tools modules in this set of tutorials.
Review examples of using refactoring functionality in a BPEL Module project.
Use this document to reproduce the actions demonstrated in the
NetBeans - XML Schema Tools Demo.
Specifications
Go to the Specifications page to access the functional and design specification documentation.
Other Resources
XML Schema Part 0: Primer is a non-normative document intended to provide an easily readable description of the XML Schema facilities, and is oriented towards quickly understanding how to create schemas using the XML Schema language.
XML namespaces provide a simple method for qualifying element and attribute names used in Extensible Markup Language documents by associating them with namespaces identified by URI references.
Other Modules in this Project
The module provides simple XML tools API for various XML related modules.
The module allows to persistently mount entity catalogs. This implementation support NetBeans native catalog and standard XML catalog. Module also offer SPI to support another catalog implementation plug in.
The module is a base for all XML related modules. It recognizes XML and DTD documents, which can be opened in text editor. It supports parsing of those documents into TAX (Tree API for XML) representation. It supports synchronization among document representations. It also holds all settings shared among all XML related modules.
The module provides very basic support for CSS editing. CSS documents can be opened in text editor with syntax coloring. There is a syntax check action.
The module provides text editing capabilities. It adds syntax coloring, abbreviation support and simple indentation engine into text editing of XML and DTD documents.
The module contains various actions, generators and tools. Especially action to generate simple DTD from XML document, or wizard which generate SAX handler implementation according to selected DTD document.
The set of modules provide infrastructure for building domain specific model with efficient undoable mutations, lazy loading and external reference capabilities.
The module provides simple XSL support including XSL transformation action.
Want to Participate?
The simplest way how to participate and to improve current status
of the XML support in the NetBeans IDE is to share your
ideas for improvements or complaints about the functionality and/or
quality with us on our mailing list
or in our bug tracking system.
For those interested, the source
code can be found here.
Currently participating in this project are:
Girish Patil (girish dot patil at sun dot com)
Nam Nguyen (nam dot nguyen at sun dot com)
Ritesh Adval (ritesh dot adval at sun dot com)
Samaresh Panda (samaresh dot panda at sun dot com)
Shivanand Kini (shivanand dot kini at sun dot com)
Sonali Kochar (sonali dot kochar at sun dot com)
Srividhya Narayanan, engineering manager (srividhya dot narayanan at sun dot com)
To send feedback, get support, and receive updates and information about XML development support in NetBeans, go to the XML Module Mailing Lists page and subscribe to the appropriate lists.
