Mary M. wrote:
We are completely DITA based, so we want the editor to edit DITA files. We need
to generate pdf and web help.
Mary M. wrote:
I've used both [XMLmind XML Editor and oXygen] for a short while, and probably
do find Oxygen more intuitive. There are a bunch of new people though that will
be using it for general documentation
(they are not full time writers) who are far more used to doing things in Word.
So although I would have a slight preference for Oxygen right now (particularly
the xml source view), I'm not wedded to either one.
Is it possible for you to expand on your statement above or point to a
comparison of the two from an editor standpoint? We'd like to make a decision
asap.
My final recommendations are found at the very end of this email.
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1) XMLmind XML Editor has been designed from the ground up to be used
with just the styled view and the node path bar. oXygen has been
designed from the ground up to be used with the source view.
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XMLmind XML Editor has been designed from the ground up to be used with
just the styled view (screenshot:
http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/screenshots/styled_view.png) and the
node path bar.
Of course, this is impossible to do if you don't take the time to learn
the basics
(http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_tutorial/basic_edit/index.html).
Once you have learned the basics, you'll find XMLmind XML Editor very
straightforward to use. If you go further with the tutorials
(http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/tutorial.html), you'll even find
XMLmind XML Editor very productive to use.
This strong requirement of learning the basics implies that XMLmind XML
Editor is indeed not intuitive. (Intuitive software=you can use the
software right away without reading any documentation.)
We do not recommend to use XMLmind XML Editor with both the styled view
and the tree view side by side (screenshot:
http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/screenshots/multiple_views.png) because
this is confusing (too much information on screen) and counter-productive.
We do not recommend to use XMLmind XML Editor with the visible tags
turned on (screenshot:
http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/screenshots/tag_view.png) because this
is confusing (too much information on screen) and will give you headaches.
We have a source view (screenshot:
http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/screenshots/source_view.png) but it's
not a ''first class'' document view like the styled view and the tree
view are. We do not recommend using it except if you are curious to see
how the source looks like and also for very few advanced search/replace
cases.
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2) With oXygen, even when using its styled view, newly inserted elements
are often incomplete and hence invalid. This never happens with XMLmind
XML Editor. With XMLmind XML Editor, the document you are editing is
valid all the time.
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With XMLmind XML Editor, if your document is initially valid, then there
is nothing you can do which will make it invalid (except, of course,
using the source view).
I'm of course referring to structural validity (no missing or unknown
attributes or child elements) and not to cross-reference errors.
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3) A feature by feature comparison is found there:
http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/features.html
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oXygen is not explicitly named in this table. However it's easy to
recognize it in this table: oXygen has *all* the listed features.
XMLmind XML Editor does not have all the listed features because, in
some cases, for quality reasons, we have to re-implement ourselves the
feature (e.g. XMLmind DITA Converter) while oXygen integrates an
implementation developed by others (e.g. IBM's DITA Open Toolkit).
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My recommendations
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If the source view is important for you, if you want a change tracking
facility which looks and feels like the one found in Word, if you like
to have loads of features (e.g. integration with revision control
systems), if you want to experiment with the most recent technologies
(e.g. DITA 1.3), then look no further and keep using oXygen.
If you want to concentrate on what you write (no tags or XML source
code), if you accept to spend some time learning the software in order
to be very productive with it, if always creating valid documents is
paramount to you, then you may consider purchasing XMLmind XML Editor.
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