Kevin Yank wrote: > > I noticed your mention of some features that were under consideration for > removal in a future XXE release. I just thought I'd let you know that many > of the features you mentioned are vital to the way we use XXE currently: > >>Note that we currently seriously consider removing features from XXE >>(our feeble support for external entities, > > As we use XXE to author large documents in DocBook XML, we make extensive > use of external entities. Specifically, we have one file for each chapter of > our books. If you remove support for external entities, will you be leaving > in support for XInclude? If not, what alternative would you suggest for our > use case -- or do you not intend to support our use case? > >>the way inclusions are refreshed, > > This seems to work perfectly well for us as-is, and again is vital to our > workflow. > >>the integrated spreadsheet engine, > > We don't use this. > >>the Include tool, > > Didn't you just add this? I must say, these erratic changes of direction > make us very uneasy about basing our business on XXE.
Basing your business on XXE or on any other tool is not a good idea. What's nice about XML is that, in principle, you don't need to depend on a particular vendor. >>the FOP 0.20.5 plug-in, > > We don't use this. > >>support for the DITA Open Toolkit, > > Does this mean you'll be dropping DITA support entirely, or just some > automation/integration? We are about to begin authoring DITA documents using > XXE, and if support for this is slated for removal, we will need to > re-evaluate our options. We really like DITA and really don't like the DITA Open Toolkit. Just try to convert a DITA document to PDF and see by yourself. Can you really give what's produced to a customer? This is not a secret: we have already explained that in great details to the DITA Open Toolkit guys. Therefore, the day we'll drop the DITA Open Toolkit, this will mean that we'll have a much superior replacement. And, if we don't have something *much* superior, we'll not drop the DITA Open Toolkit. (We are not that crazy.) However, even if one day, we offer a much superior replacement, for some users who have heavily invested in the DITA Open Toolkit, this is not necessarily good news. >>Local file locking, etc). > > I'm not familiar with this feature, so I can't comment on whether we make > use of it. > >>But this will probably not occur before v4.0. > > From the sound of things, 4.0 just might be the point at which we need to > find a new XML editor. Right. I'll bet that you'll buy our new product ;-) XXE v4 will be the foundation of a new product (not called XXE). For that, we need a lean and mean XXE v4. Therefore: * Anything which does not work at 100% (e.g. kludges such as our feeble support for references to external entities -- and not XIncludes of course, the way inclusions are refreshed, etc) will be removed and, this, even if this means a functional regression. * Anything non-essential (Include tool, spreadsheet engine, etc) will be made an add-on. Now what I've said is the theory. We'll see what we'll do in practice. > Is anything going to be *added* to 4.0? Sure but we cannot reveal what's going to be added, just what's *may* be removed. > It seems like lately, each release > of XXE delivers less and less value to your paying customers... Less value to *paying* customers? This is simply not true. Please take a look at: http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/changes.html
