Open Source Featured Article

Syntext, Inc. is ready to release its Serna no Cost XML editor as open source software. Serna is an easy-to-use WYSIWYG XML editor. Based on open standards, the editor will run on all major platforms like Microsoft Windows (2000, XP, Vista), Linux, Mac OS X, and Sun Solaris/SPARC.

 

According to Paul Antonov, the CEO of Syntext, the company’s goal is to make XML accessible for everyone. The firm believes that an open source XML editor like Serna will enable much more individual and corporate users to adopt XML technology. Antonov also said in a statement that since Serna has benefited from open source components, it's now time for Serna to give something back.

 

Serna is a WYSIWYG XML platform for XML-based applications powered by on-the-fly XSL-driven technology. It provides a single point access to distributed documents. Serna reads XML documents and data from several XML data sources and blends this information into a seamless presentation. Inexperienced users are able to edit it like in a word processor and constantly ensure validity and consistency in terms of structure and business rules.

 

Serna Free XML editor is intended for students, open-source project developers and other non-commercial users. It combines the WYSIWYG approach with intuitive behavior to help writers with little XML experience to edit XML documents easily. Since composite XML documents are visualized using XSLT and XSL-FO stylesheets as a transparent integrated whole, the authoring process gets accelerated. Serna Free XML editor has multilingual spell checking feature based on Aspell library, which supports around 30 languages.

 

The software has built-in support for popular XML document types like DITA, Docbook, XHTML, TEI P4 and NITF. On-the-fly XML validation with XML Schema (News - Alert) enables assisted XML editing. It also guarantees the quality and consistency of XML documents. The drag-and-drop editing feature of Serna Free enables the user to change the order of any XML document portions in ContentMap, Editing Window or between them and also between several opened XML documents.

 

The open source XML editor will retain the rich feature set, usability and productivity of the current Serna Free XML editor. Serna Free is expected to go open source in July, 2009. Syntext develops state-of-the-art XML solutions for creating and maintaining complex XML content for industries like aerospace, software development, publishing and others.

 

Earlier this year, Syntext unveiled a free edition of its “WYSIWYG” XML editor for students and open source developers who work with DITA, DocBook, and other popular XML formats.