A posting from Rick Jelliffe announces the release of the Topologi Collaborative Markup Editor version 1.0.1. The Collaborative Markup Editor is a delimiter-aware text editor with markup-aware cut-and-paste operations, undo/redo, rectangular selection, clear diagnostics, and over a dozen innovative tools to handle common markup tasks. The editing environment is described as "a new tool for professional publishing teams and individuals which supports the whole of lifecycle for large and complex XML and SGML documents." The program design reflects an observation that "standard text editors don't provide enough validation but XML editors lack the flexibiltiy that publishers require." The Topologi Collaborative Markup Editor is suitable especially in contexts where the editing tasks involve markup, text conversion, efficient teamwork, multiple DTDs, larger files, and multiple languages or platforms. The tool supports Unicode and offers validation for both SGML and XML. It "gracefully handles long files and bad markup, offers fast text input and scrolling, and incorporates innovative tools in a familar interface framework. It provides flexibility by working with different document types, and adjusts readily to new document types, with special validation modes for incomplete documents." Topologi is based upon standards from ISO, IETF and W3C; it supports ISO RELAX NG, Schematron 1.5, W3C XML, Namespaces, and W3C XML Schema. The Community Edition for Wintel may be downloaded for evaluation from Topologi's website; Linux and Mac OS X versions are now in beta testing.

From the visual (screenshot) documentation:

Validation: "The editor supports the most complete range of schema languages of any editor: ISO SGML DTDs and W3C XML DTDs, the data-oriented W3C XML Schemas and the new, simpler, publishing-oriented schema languages of ISO DSDL (Document Schema Description Languages): ISO RELAX NG and ISO Schematron. As well, you can visually check your documents by calling an external XSLT stylesheet or typesetting system. Sample code for connecting to an Adobe FrameMaker7 typesetting server is available... The editor supports progressive validation to allow the user to work in stages: check that delimiters are OK, well-formed, namespace OK, incomplete-but-feasible, valid, extended..."

Search and Tag: "In addition to the usual Search and Replace tool, the editor provides a Search and Tag tool, which allows the user to wrap selected text in some string. The search field is a regular expression which uses coloring and graphics in a similar way to the main editor, to help users keep on top of how the regular expressions works. There is also a faster version of search which uses just plain strings, not regular expressions, for the fast and faint of heart. Note that the fields are multiline, as are most fields in this editor. Similarly, most tools have memory (the arrows) to let you run or refine previous operations repeatedly..."

Database Import: "The editor can connect to any JDBC or ODBC database, query it, get the results back in a table, and insert that table marked up with row and cell names into your document. The editor comes with an extensive scriptable plug-in system, using Java as the scripting language. Example plug-ins are provides; these are easy to customize with specific queries..."

File and Document Type Information: "When a file has been opened, it is possible to check up on many of its properties in the File Information Tool. For example, to change from text editing to XML editing. The editor supports adding and maintaining Dublin Core metadata for files, transmitted out-of-band with the document. The Java-language plug-in scripts for different file types can be used to transmit this metadata to your content management system... The Topologi editor provides a Document Type Information Tool. This tool allows you to load and customize XAR (XML Application Archive) files. These files use the commonly available ZIP format to transport any DTDs, schemas or stylesheets required to be associated with a particular document type. As opposed to many structured editing environments, XARs make loading an application a simple click-and-go operation. The editor supports a web update, server update and peer update facility, to allow easy deployment of XAR applications..."

The 2002-08-27 version of the Topologi editor core is available for 1.0.1 users wishing to update without downloading the full distribution again. This version adds drag and drop, multiple file opening, improved access to fonts, improvements to previewing and printing, readonly-file locking, fast searching, saving and performance. It includes the previous 1.0.1 enhancements two extra markup pens, re-names and rearranges the menus slightly, improves performance, and fixes some reported errors... the 2002-08-28 version includes an improved port of the Xerces libary (improved regular expressions and validation).

Schematron Validator is "a free, multi-purpose, drag-and-drop tool for Windows systems... excellent for end-users, developers and education. Also validates DTDs, ISO RELAX NG, W3C XML Schemas, and embedded Schematron schemas."