Dear M. Shafie,
This mail is just a feedback concerning the compare tool introduced in
release v5.1 of XMLmind XML Editor. Certainly, other customers may have
different views on the subject, we just hope this feedback can be useful
among other contributions.
What is implemented in XXE v5.1 is more or less similar to the "track
changes" mechanism you can find in MS-Word; it is very simple to use. It
does not require any change in the existing XML processing (XSLT etc
etc). The compare tool itself is very easy to use, reviewing changes is
very easy.
T*hose are very good points.
*
However, the overall "track changes" workflow as implemented in XXE 5.1
is not practical in our case, we try to explain why below.
There are two different situations where we need to consider changes
between XML files, both requiring different tools:
*1. *When authors review an XML document within XXE, the "track changes"
mechanism is exactly what they need. But, this must be kept *within one
single document*, and should not require a second document.
*Rationale:* Would force us to keep the life-cycle history of XML
documents (which one is the review of which one), and to keep two
documents, when there is usually only one, stored for instance in a SCM
(source code management) system.
Suggestion: Open XML, switch the "track changes", make changes,
save. The "compare tool" becomes a "review changes" tool which requires
only an XML document having the "track changes" on.
*2.* When XML documents are modified from several different tools,
including batch programs (e.g. XSLT transformations) in addition to XXE
editing, we need to be able to dynamically track the changes between
several revisions of the same file. In this case, the "track changes"
as it is implemented now isn't of any help.
A typical use case if when examinating the difference between two
versions of the same document from a SCM tool (E.g.: say, the /workspace
revision/ and the /last revision/ committed by somebody else).
In this case, we have two XML files, and what we really need is to
dynamically compute an "XML-aware" difference between these two
versions. The compare tool would be a great tool to navigate within
this dynamic difference (behind the stage this might imply using an
XML-diff engine ?).
We hope this is not too long; again, this is just how we see things in
my company, and by no means the only way to do things.... We hope this
can be useful however.
Best regards, and congratulations for your excellent products,
Philippe.
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