XML editor using only indentation for nesting?

[leap]

I'm very new to XML, and have only spent about
10 minutes looking for something I already know
I want. Pardon me if the availability of what
I want is common knowledge among XML cognoscenti.

My subject line doesn't really do justice to
my meaning.

What I want is an editor for XML that displays
XML with a lot less redundancy.

For example, the XML snippet as follows

=========================
<configuration-file>
<section name="section1">
<entry name="name1" value="value1"/>
<entry name="name2" value="value2"/>
</section>
<section name="section2">
<entry name="someothername" value="someothervalue"/>
</section>
</configuration-file>
=========================

would be rendered in the hypothetical editor
pane somewhat like this:

=========================
configuration-file
section name="section1"
entry name="name1" value="value1"
name="name2" value="value2"
section name="section2"
entry name="someothername" value="someothervalue"
=========================

Two points I'd like to make clear:

(1) I mean something *like* this, not *exactly*
like this. I'm flexible. Really. ;-)

(2) I don't want to hear about how I should
really read and write straight XML, how
it's good for my soul, how I won't really
understand XML if I don't read and write
XML using standard syntactic conventions, how
I'm trying to turn XML into some other
language, or into a new language, or into
COBOL, or whatever, or how existing XML
editors, with their color-codings and
input helpers, make reading and writing
XML "as easy" as what I'm thinking of, after
I "get used to it", etc., etc.,

So that you don't waste keystrokes explaining
the unnecessary: I studied computer science
at a decent school, have programmed in C, C++
Lisp, and various other languages, and my
career in software spans several decades,
including work in integrated circuit design
tools and format converters for them. I even
hand a small hand in defining an electronic
design interchange format (EDIF 1.0) that was
somewhat somewhat in the spirit of XML,
though different in syntax. In short, I may
be an XML newbie, but I'm far from a newbie
when it comes to many of the issues XML
seems to address.

Even from what little I've read about XML,
I can see that it affords considerable leverage.
It's just that I'm not sold on reading and
writing raw XML (except for self-tutorial
purposes) if I don't have to. (If I *do*
have to, I'd appreciate knowing why, despite
my whiny and defensive disclaimer point #2,
above.)

This is just a request for information:
is there something like what I want out
there somewhere? If there isn't, is there
a good reason why not?

If this is colossally boring issue for this
forum, but you still want to help me, a reply
by private e-mail would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Michael Turner
(e-mail address removed)

 

[Peter Flynn]

I'm very new to XML, and have only spent about
10 minutes looking for something I already know
I want. Pardon me if the availability of what
I want is common knowledge among XML cognoscenti.

My subject line doesn't really do justice to
my meaning.

What I want is an editor for XML that displays
XML with a lot less redundancy.

See the notes on editors in the FAQ at
http://xml.silmaril.ie/developers/software/

For example, the XML snippet as follows [...]
would be rendered in the hypothetical editor
pane somewhat like this:

=========================
configuration-file
section name="section1"
entry name="name1" value="value1"
name="name2" value="value2"
section name="section2"
entry name="someothername" value="someothervalue"
=========================

Are you looking for a plaintext editor or a synchronous typographical editor
(what people call "GUI" or "WYSIWYG" or "graphical" editors)?

I don't know any plaintext editor that can hide the pointy brackets and the
slashes, although you could probably write some elisp to make Emacs do it
in xxml-mode.

"Graphical" editors certainly display the markup in symbolic form, usually
in the form of blocks or pointers of various shapes and colours, and they
can hide them completely (which is what makes people refer to these editors
as "WYSIWYG"). Some (like epcEdit) can control the amount of information
shown in the graphical tags, so this might be what you want
(www.epcedit.com)

(2) I don't want to hear about how I should
really read and write straight XML, how
it's good for my soul, how I won't really
understand XML if I don't read and write
XML using standard syntactic conventions, how
I'm trying to turn XML into some other
language, or into a new language, or into
COBOL, or whatever, or how existing XML
editors, with their color-codings and
input helpers, make reading and writing
XML "as easy" as what I'm thinking of, after
I "get used to it", etc., etc.,

OK. So you only want it *displayed* like the above. Presumably you're
happy that the underlying file remains syntactically intact and correct.

Even from what little I've read about XML,
I can see that it affords considerable leverage.
It's just that I'm not sold on reading and
writing raw XML (except for self-tutorial
purposes) if I don't have to. (If I *do*
have to, I'd appreciate knowing why, despite
my whiny and defensive disclaimer point #2,
above.)

No problem. It sounds as if you're just looking for a graphical editor
rather than a plaintext one. Unfortunately (modulo my comments above),
most of them just let you hide all markup or reveal all markup, rather
than a selective reveal like you describe.

This is just a request for information:
is there something like what I want out
there somewhere? If there isn't, is there
a good reason why not?

If you weren't aware such things existed, of course, you wouldn't have been
able to ask the question -- in this case it would immeasurably help those of
us who write the documentation if you could let me know (by email if
necessary) where you looked for this information and didn't find it, so we
can update the doc with more useful stuff.

///Peter