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Love Calm Quiet · Nov 15, 2003, 08:18 AM

Lots of folks are using XML documents as database-like structures (e.g., Safari, Mail, OmniOutline). XML & the idea of learning its style sheets give me a headache.

But if someone had a Mac OS GUI to browse/modify a XML document so that it acted as if you were manipulating fields and their records in FileMakerPro or Appleworks, that'd be awesome? I'd like to be able to drop an XML doc (like my Safari history.plist) on such an app and see the XML database represented as table of fields&records.

A search of VersionTracker & these forums doesn't offer much hope. FMPro import/export requires getting trained in XSLT - life is too short for that. Anybody seen anything? Any developer ever considered the market?

VEGAN · Nov 15, 2003, 08:32 AM

Originally posted by Love Calm Quiet:
Lots of folks are using XML documents as database-like structures (e.g., Safari, Mail, OmniOutline). XML & the idea of learning its style sheets give me a headache.

But if someone had a Mac OS GUI to browse/modify a XML document so that it acted as if you were manipulating fields and their records in FileMakerPro or Appleworks, that'd be awesome? I'd like to be able to drop an XML doc (like my Safari history.plist) on such an app and see the XML database represented as table of fields&records.

A search of VersionTracker & these forums doesn't offer much hope. FMPro import/export requires getting trained in XSLT - life is too short for that. Anybody seen anything? Any developer ever considered the market?

For .plist files, use "Property List Editor.app" [comes with Dev Tools]... and then there is Morphon XML editor [I haven't played with it much yet]

Love Calm Quiet · Nov 15, 2003, 09:26 AM

Thanks for suggestion on Property List Editor - a good thing to know about - but it's not converting XML to a flat-table database type form.
Morphon's XML Editor *sounds* interesting but would not install/run - like others describe at VersionTracker.

I'm still wonder... *can* an XML be expressed as a flat table structure?

Aside: while XML sounds like it has lots of application in future - what sort of substitute is it for a read db. PERFORMANCE of Safari's & Address Book's XML "DBs" is not what I'd call "snappy" when there are hundreds of "records".

macsfromnowon · Nov 17, 2003, 07:40 AM

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that what you want is doable.

XML is a !document-description! structure, not a database structure. A full description of a database table (like in tab-delimited text file) would require some data for every record/field combination. That would not necessarily be there in all XML files.

Of course it MIGHT be for an XML file that was exported from a DB (like in FMPro). Would that satisfy what you want?

Ilja · Nov 17, 2003, 09:15 AM

It is definitely possible. I've seen a *cough* windows *cough* app that did this pretty well, don't remember the name though...

You could enter data in an xml-file through a excel-like table-structure.

Love Calm Quiet · Nov 17, 2003, 09:25 AM

Yes... that's what I'm envisioning. Sure seems like there should be something for OS X... since so many of the Apple apps seemed to be based on XML documents.

Nobody seen anything for Mac?

VEGAN · Nov 17, 2003, 09:25 AM

Originally posted by Ilja:
It is definitely possible. I've seen a *cough* windows *cough* app that did this pretty well, don't remember the name though...

You could enter data in an xml-file through a excel-like table-structure.

You can write in Excel and save it as XML

There are so many possibilities, I don't really know what you want. Be more specific.

You can write a PHP script that does just what you want, custom made [I did one for myself] that helps you input data and outputs it as XML

*shrug*

Ilja · Nov 17, 2003, 09:31 AM

Originally posted by VEGAN:
You can write in Excel and save it as XML

*shrug*

Nononono, it was an app that could provide a gui-frontend (similar to the gui frontend of excel) for any xml-file. worked pretty good.

I believe it was an xml-editor in Visual Studio btw; it had two modes, one mode to edit the raw xml along with code-completion and one through a gui.

Love Calm Quiet · Nov 17, 2003, 10:27 AM

Sure, I can export from Excel or FMPro and thereby create an XML doc. And there are ways to *import* from XML. But I don't want to work with two versions of my data.

If, for example, I wanted to access, for example, my Mac's Address Book... and scan and select to see/modify only certain records (e.g., pick everyone with last name 'Gates' as one might in a usual DB app), then, when I make changes [such as appending " (troll)" to their first name], I'd like to be able to *SAVE* the changes and have the XML file reflect the changes so that when I access them in Address Book or Mail apps the modifications in the XML show up seamlessly.

[A trivial example obviously]

Ilja · Nov 17, 2003, 03:45 PM

You guys miss my point: I wasn't saying you have to export from Excel or something. I am saying there is an app that lets you modify an XML file directly through an Excel-like interface

It's definitely possible. Propertylisteditor does the same kind of thing (only in the wrong kind of way IMO)

Love Calm Quiet · Nov 17, 2003, 04:12 PM

I hear you... But fortunately/unfortunately I'm not on a Windows system. Weren't you saying that was a Windows app? Please let me know if you remember name of it (tho I'm not about to go w/VPC just for that.)

Ilja · Nov 17, 2003, 04:34 PM

I thought it was the build-in xml-editor in Visual Studio.NET

Anyway, Oxygen is probably the closest you'll get...

Ilja · Nov 17, 2003, 04:41 PM

And this one, however the interface looks horrible imo...

found them through Versiontracker

Gee4orce · Nov 18, 2003, 02:31 AM

There is one called Elf edit or something, which is a very OS9 feeling Carbon app - but it's quite functional.

I thought that XMLSpy was coming to the Mac too - that's a biggie on the windows side.

XML is too open ended to really be straightjacketed into what you want - if you want a database like editor, then it will be able to edit database-like XML documents. But that's not the same thing as editing all XML documents that are possible. Property List Editor is a good example of an app that can edit a specific kind of XML document in a specific way.

If you wrote a general purpose XML editor, then by definition it would also be an HTML editor - which is something that the Mac is also lacking IMO (and don't anybody say 'Dreamweaver')...

Love Calm Quiet · Nov 18, 2003, 04:34 AM

Gee4orce...
That's what I was suspecting. I just looked at Oxygen, which is very nice XML editing software. But it just displays the XML like an HTML editor (tho with nicely color-coded tags & other features).

Actually, I'd be *most delighted* for a table-like XML browser that was "straightjacketed" into processing XML only as a flat-file DB editor... since that's type of XML doc I'd like to generate/process.

I'll look for Elf. Thanks