XML Notepad Release Notes

Beta 1.5
May 15, 1999

This document provides complementary or late-breaking information about XML Notepad to supplement the documentation.

Contents

Installation Requirements

Microsoft® Internet Explorer 4.01 with Service Pack 1 or later is necessary to run XML Notepad. If you have Internet Explorer 5 installed, you will be able to take advantage of features offered in both Internet Explorer 4.0 as well as 5.0. See Internet Explorer 4.0/5.0 Object Model Issues for more information.

Installing Internet Explorer 4 and the Redistributable MSXML.DLL is equivalent to running XML Notepad under Internet Explorer 5.

Note: You do not need to have Internet Explorer 4.0 or 5.0 set as your default browser for XML Notepad to run.

Internet Explorer 4.0/5.0 Object Model Issues

If you have Internet Explorer 5 installed, you can force XML Notepad to revert to the Internet Explorer 4.0 object model by cancelling the selection of the "Use IE5 DOM on existing XML Documents" option from the Tools/Option menu.

Element/attribute tag name case issues

If you are using XML Notepad on a system that has Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 with Service Pack 1 installed, all element and attribute tag names will be converted to uppercase on loading a file. On saving a file, all tag names are saved as displayed.

If you are using XML Notepad on a system that has Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 installed, case sensitivity is maintained on loading and saving a file.

Well-formed XML source: Under both the Internet Explorer 4.0 and 5.0 object models, a file has to be well formed if it is to be saved. The most common cause of a file not being well formed is a missing element or attribute name, or invalid characters in the tag name. XML Notepad will point you to the source of non-conformance when you attempt to save a document.

Shortcut tag names

If you are running XML Notepad under the Internet Explorer 4.0 object model, you can open files that contain minimized end tags — for example </> instead of </elementname>. Files containing this shortcut are not compliant with the XML 1.0 standard, but can be successfully loaded with the Internet Explorer 4.0 object model. Saving such a file will convert minimized end tags to complete end tags, resulting in a well-formed XML file.

Under the Internet Explorer 5 DOM (Document Object Model), files with minimized end tags cannot be opened.

Validation issues

Under the Internet Explorer 4.0 OM, DTD (Document Type Definition) validation is unavailable.

Under the Internet Explorer 5 DOM:

DTD or XML Schema validation occurs on loading a file. Since validation only occurs on loading a file (and not on save), it is possible to open a valid XML file, make changes that do not conform to the DTD or XML Schema, save the invalid file, and then receive a validation error upon reopening the file.
If the XML source does not conform to the DTD or XML Schema, a dialog box pointing to the source of non-conformance will appear.
If the DTD or XML Schema contains syntax errors, an error dialog box will appear pointing to the source of the error.

New Features in Beta 1.5

The main purpose of the Beta 1.5 release is increased compatibility with Internet Explorer 5. In addition the following features have been added:

The Open dialog now accepts up to 259 characters for URLs and filenames.
The XML Notepad Options dialog includes a new Validate Documents on Load option when running under Internet Explorer 5.
Additional functionality is provided when the XML Notepad Options dialog option Display Compatibility and Data Loss Warnings on Load is selected. Warnings are now also displayed when processing instructions are lost and entities are expanded.
Under Internet Explorer 5 XML Notepad can also be used to author XSL (Extensible Stylesheet Language) and XML Schema files, since these grammars are themselves well-formed XML documents.

Known Bugs in Beta 1.5

Uninstall doesn't remove icons from the Start Menu. You must remove these manually.
End-of-line characters are visible in the View Source window. If you are using Internet Explorer 4.0 with Service Pack 1, you may notice that extraneous block characters are displayed at the end of every line. These characters do not affect your data in any way. However, if you would like to avoid seeing the characters, you will need to upgrade to Internet Explorer 5.