Free lightweight XML text editor to include with an application

Question

Our application uses a XML configuation file. I thought that it would be nice to distribute some XML editor with our application, so that the user can conveniently edit the config file. Features should be:

• Small and lightweight (ideally, a small .exe that does not require installation),
• free, with license terms that permit distributing it with a commercial application,
• understands XML schemas (auto-completion, show validation errors).

Does anyone know of such an editor?

Answer 1

"Peters XML Editor" or "Open XML Editor" might be good choices. You have to look at the license thought. If its GPL you can bundle the Editor, even for commercial uses, because the editor will stay a standalone tool, but only if working with XML is not the main buisiness of your applicattion. Most other freeware editors are missing a license, and I would not add them without a short note from the author. Send him a mail, most freeware authors love their product being distributed.

Answer 2

Notepad++ (free as in beer and as in free speech) http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm

This fulfills most of your requirements; however, it only has tag collapsing and will not show validation errors or auto completion.

XML Notepad by MSFT is good, but it does not allow wide distribution. You may be able to get by checking installed apps for XML Notepad and, if it's installed, sending startup arguments to the app.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=72d6aa49-787d-4118-ba5f-4f30fe913628&displaylang=en

Answer 3

My vote goes for Microsoft Xml Notepad 2007. It is very intuitive and your user will not have to really pay attention to the elements, but use a user-friendly interface

Answer 4

Notepad++ with XML Tools plugin.

Answer 5

Notepad2

Free, lightweight (only one executable file and config.ini; not as overloaded with functions as Notepad++), versatile, nice and simple UI:

http://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html

Answer 6

http://sourceforge.net/projects/xml-copy-editor/

Answer 7

If you cannot find what you are looking for, we wrote our own configuration editor for XML. However, it has a few restrictions that might make it not applicable to your situation.

• It does not support XML files with more than one level of depth (ie. One root with multiple complex types but each complex type only supports simple types.)
• Currently only supports int, double, datetime, bool and string.

Some bonuses:

• It has auto validation from an xsd.
• It automatically generates a user interface from the xml & xsd, so no actual XML editing.
• Generates most applicable user interface based on simple type. (ie. DatePicker for DateTime, ComboBox for bool, and TextBoxes for the rest.
• Ability to create new xml file, adding tables and data fields.
• When constructing a new configuration, does validation on fields based on simple type selected.
• When saving a new configuration, it generates the XML and XSD files.

If you are interested, it will take me a day or two to refactor it out of our current project but I can make it available. If you want the source code you can probably remove the above issues with it.