Attention: We have retired the ASP.NET Community Blogs.
Learn more >
Xopus Released
Q42 has finally released the commercial version of their
browser based XML editor
xopus (no COM components, this
thing is a pure DHTML based WYSIWYG XML editor). Xopus is
pretty slick, although its architecture makes it difficult to
integrate with .NET (not impossible though, I posted a bit of
code a while back to do this with an older version)... unless
of course you were creating a DHTML based SOA, in which case
you would probably have much better luck... it is just those
darn postbacks and server controls that don't fit their model.
8 Comments
It does look slick...in internet explorer.
It's really starting to bug me that professional product
developers can't be bothered to adhere to standards. I
can't even view the homepage in anything but IE.
You do realize that Xopus used to work in Mozilla (which
the site looks perfect in) before they probably realized
it was too much of a moving target right? I've still got
the open source version hanging around somewhere...
I love and use Mozilla, but if you have ever done any
heavy DOM apps, you would know that Mozilla, even though
it's got the right goals, has some crippling bugs hidden
in there. Other than IE and Mozilla, no other browser
can even come close to supporting something like Xopus.
Maybe Safari one day...but the guys at Opera have pretty
much shown they could care less about the DOM spec.
Why should they support any browser that wont support
the standards their products, and jobs, depend on?
Well, the CONTENTEDITABLE attribute, where most of the
functionality needed for this is, isn't exactly
standard... it should be though!
Jon,
Come on. Moving target? The DOM is an industry standard.
Mozilla has thee most complete support for it out there.
The only people to blame for incompatibilities are
Microsoft(and Xopus for coding to proprietary
extensions?).
All I'm saying is; why tie yourself to proprietary
extensions of the DOM when it's simple to work around
the stupitidy of MS*. Most other browsers adhere to the
DOM standard (of event detection, and event binding for
example).
And BTW. I can't view the homepage in mozilla at all.
All I get is the title on my tab. Although, to be fair,
this is most likely because of my using some random
nightly build.
*I love most MS technology. Just can't stand the way
they abuse the DOM.
This type of thing just isn't possible without the
extensions though. It isn't a matter of MS somehow
impeeding standards, it is a matter of MS innovating so
that developers have the tools they need to create
richer applications.
Try implementing the ContentEditable attribute's
functionality with DHTML... it just ain't going to
happen.
Xopus worked on Mozilla long before Mozilla introduced
the contenteditable stuff. All built on the DOM stuff. I
believe it was Q42 who was working on the
contenteditable hack as well. So yes...it can be done in
DHTML, and it was.
Mozilla has the best DOM support, but it also has more
DOM bugs than the IE implementation. Perhaps that's only
to be expected, but it's still true. I know for a fact
that the replaceChild() method is broken in Moz having
recently run into it.
Try getting a DOM2 script to work in any two Mozilla
versions released at least a month apart. Good
luck...start talking about point releases and the
changed or broken things from version to version are
uncountable. They need to go to a 6 month release cycle,
minimum.
The previous versions of Xopus that I am aware of
actually required an additional plugin to be installed
on top of mozilla to enable the contenteditable stuff,
they didn't use DHTML for it. I am not aware of any
DHTML implementation of content editable... of course, I
could be mistaken, but that is my understanding.
OK. I'll admit that what really set me off on this
tangent is that the homepage wouldn't load.
I'd also like to say that I have no idea about Xopus or
it's capabilities, but would like to learn more about
it.