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Subject:Re: Generating documentation for XML schema files From:Suzanne Chiles <suzchiles -at- gmail -dot- com> To:Mark Giffin <mgiffin -at- earthlink -dot- net> Date:Fri, 20 Jan 2012 11:11:08 -0800
I've been using oXygen on a daily basis for the last two years and think it's a wonderful tool. I recommend it highly. I've also found the customer support to be excellent.
Suzanne
On Jan 20, 2012, at 10:15 AM, Mark Giffin wrote:
> Hi Cheryl,
>
> I have seen the documentation output from XMLSpy, and it is similar to the output from the Oxygen XML editor:
>
>http://www.oxygenxml.com/
>
> I usually find that the output from these tools is overly complicated and even bewildering, but both of them look good, with lots of little graphics and diagrams and show/hide features (in the HTML output). Probably the problem is that the vendors have no idea what you are using the docs for, and who the audience is. So they try to cover the bases. But with Oxygen and I'm sure with XMLSpy, you are provided with many configuration options and output formats for the docs and maybe you can come up with a reasonable result. I have not played with these options. I'm sure you could customize the output in many ways. For one example, Oxygen has a DocBook XML output, and you could write an XSLT script to adjust the DocBook to your liking. Or you could customize the HTML output, etc.
>
> I don't know much about the other two tools you mention, but I will assume they work in similar ways. They analyze the XML schema and present the structure of it in various ways. There will be no documentation other than that unless you add <xsd:annotation> elements (and related elements) to the schema with descriptions of the various pieces. Possibly some of the tools let you merge in descriptions that are external to the schema.
>
> I have not used any of these tools for actual doc work. I have always opted for writing XSLT scripts that run through the schema and pull out only the bits I want. It's usually pretty quick but I already know XSLT.
>
> Mark Giffin
>http://www.markgiffin.com/
>
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