The latest version of the Altova product line introduces a host of new features and functionality. Customers now have access to new, visual YAML editing tools, improved options for extracting PDF data for mapping to other formats, updated SQL and NoSQL data integration support, and more.
Whether working with Altova developer tools, server software products, or XBRL add-ins for Excel, this release has something for everyone. Here’s a look at the highlights.
In programming, modularization is the practice of dividing functionality into separate, independent modules. Modularization in app development is an efficient way of organizing app components and enabling collaboration within development teams. A modular approach also helps make testing, debugging, and maintenance of the app easier and more straightforward.
MobileTogether offers some classic – and some unique – approaches to modularization.
XQuery Update Facility is an extension of the XQuery language that allows you to make changes in an XML document using “update expressions” that insert, delete, replace, or rename nodes. This extension provides a convenient way to make intelligent updates to XML documents, and XMLSpy has a unique implementation that makes it even easier. Let’s see how it works.
YAML is increasing in popularity due to its combination of human readability, simplicity, and versatility. Often used in configuration files and for data serialization, YAML can be used alongside JSON and XML in modern systems. It makes sense, then, for developers to choose an IDE that supports all three standards.
New YAML tools in XMLSpy add to comprehensive support for XML and JSON development, giving users the flexibility to choose the most suitable serialization format for their specific use cases and preferences.
Let’s take a look at YAML support in the XML and JSON editor.
The advantages of JSON as a lightweight, human-readable, interoperable data format have led to its widespread adoption in various domains, including web development, mobile app development, and backend services. Many programming libraries and frameworks provide built-in support for JSON parsing and serialization.
That said, most applications still benefit from or require validation of client-submitted data. Enter the JSON Schema spec, which lets you describe the structure of JSON data for a particular application, for both documentation and validation purposes.
Though JSON Schema code is by design human-readable, building a complex schema with nested and repeating sections in a text-only editor becomes time consuming and error-prone quickly. Let’s look at five ways a graphical editor is a must-have for JSON Schema development.
Code editors with a graphical option in addition to the traditional text view are great for developers working with XML or JSON. Graphical editors like Grid View in XMLSpy provide a visual representation of the JSON or XML structure, making it easier to understand, navigate, and edit complex data hierarchies.
XMLSpy introduced Grid View years ago and has been improving on it ever since. The most recent update includes the ability to split the editing pane horizontally or vertically, which is especially handy when working with large documents.
The latest release of Altova software includes ongoing enhancements for graphical XML and JSON editing in XMLSpy Grid View, new tools for working with XPath/XQuery, support for integrating VDA EDI data in MapForce, and much more.
Here’s a quick overview of all the new functionality being introduced.
Data-driven solutions like database and enterprise apps rely on connection to, and interaction with, backend databases. Backend relational databases, however, store data in tables that reflect complex data relationships. This provides numerous advantages for effective data management and data integrity but can make it difficult to access and work with the data stored therein in new ways. App developers need to have a comprehensive understanding of database design principles and the SQL query language just to get started.
In contrast, real world data relationships most often represent parent-child relationships or even deeper hierarchical structure. As such, working with hierarchical data where relationships can be visualized in a tree structure can be much simpler and more flexible, leading to faster development. This approach is also more accessible to developers without extensive SQL expertise.
To make building apps that connect to the backend relational databases that are ubiquitous in today’s enterprise easier, faster, and available to a wider range of developers, Altova MobileTogether takes an entirely unique approach. Its visual Database Wizard lets developers easily build a query that returns hierarchical data, work with that data in the app, and then easily save the data back in hierarchical form, letting MobileTogether take care of normalizing the data and writing it back to the corresponding linked tables. Let’s take a look at how it works.
Altova releases new versions of its app development framework multiple times a year to introduce new features added in response to customer requests and feedback, as well as to add support for newer OS and database versions as they become available.
The latest release of MobileTogether and RecordsManager introduces important new functionality for building low-code and no-code apps.
Big Data trends have developers working with XML alongside other data protocols such as JSON and Apache Avro, and XMLSpy supports both of these with dedicated editing views and functionality.
Let’s see how specialized Avro support in XMLSpy makes visualizing and searching Avro files, as well as editing Avro schemas, uniquely easy. We’ll also look at some of the advantages of utilizing RaptorXML Server for high-performance Avro processing.
Nothing’s more frustrating than getting unintended results from an XSLT or XQuery transformation and having to spend hours tracking down the issue – especially if you’ve inherited the project from another developer or haven’t looked at the code in a few months. Of course, XMLSpy has long included an XSLT debugger and XQuery debugger for setting break points and stepping through transformations to identify problems.
With back-mapping enabled, you can simply click on or hover over the portion of your output document you want to zero in on, and XMLSpy will immediately highlight the source XML and XSLT or XQuery instruction that is responsible. Let’s see how it works.
The latest release of Altova desktop developer tools, server software, and regulatory solutions introduces a host of productivity-boosting features across the product line, as well as updated support for standards, databases, and integration with popular IDEs.
The ability to diff and merge files is a necessity for every developer. This can be especially troublesome when trying to compare differences between files containing structured data, such as XML.
The video tutorial below provides an explanation on how to compare XML files – and more – using both XMLSpy and DiffDog. These powerful utilities perform diff and merge operations in an XML-aware manner, which reduces the number of false positives seen when comparing files.
XMLSpy is known for its graphical editing views, which make working with and editing XML and JSON more straightforward – and therefore increase developer productivity.
Both XML Grid and JSON Grid have received major updates in recent releases, and we’re committed to making these graphical views as feature-rich and effective as possible through continuous improvement. As such, we rely on and appreciate feature requests and developer feedback. The latest release of XMLSpy provides some great updates in response to this input.
I was recently talking with one of our Support Engineers about common questions he receives from customers. One that comes up a lot is schema generation, specifically, “How can I generate an XSD from XML?” The answer, of course, is to use your favorite XML editor. XMLSpy will generate a valid XSD from a DTD, a relational database structure, a JSON Schema, and of course, an XML instance.
But what many customers are surprised to learn is that the XML editor will also create an XML Schema based on a group of related XML files – and this is a common requirement. Let’s take a look at how it works.
What better goal to set for your summer than learning a new programming language? Forget the “beach books” this summer and set your sights on diving into a new coding language – but which one should you pick?
As reported by EDC there are approximately 24 million professional software developers on Earth, and almost 700 notable programming languages (according to Wikipedia). I would wager a bet there is a staggeringly equal number of places online where you can learn one programming language or another. Whether you are already one of those 11 million coding experts or a newbie to programming, there is a plethora of information out there to sort though.
For the purposes for this blog post, we will certainly look at the world’s most-widely-used programming languages in 2021, but also at important languages for data manipulation and querying, so we’ll discuss: C and its derivatives (C++, C#, and Objective-C), Java, Python, R, JavaScript, Ruby, SQL, and XQuery.
Deciding where to start depends entirely on the kind of development scenarios you have in mind, so we’ve broken things down for you to make it easier. It doesn’t matter if you are a seasoned programmer looking to add a new language to your repertoire or a novice who doesn’t know the difference between C, C++, Objective-C, or C# yet. We have assembled a list of explanations to help you choose which language you may want to conquer next.
If you’ve worked with XML in XMLSpy you’ve likely utilized XML Grid View to get a graphical representation of your XML document’s structure. This visual representation of the document’s hierarchical structure makes it immediately easier to understand and edit the content.
In the latest version of the XML editor, XML Grid looks a little different – in fact, it’s been completely rebuilt from scratch to offer even more unique functionality for editing, querying, calculating, and sharing XML data.
In the latest release of Altova desktop developer tools and server software products, we’re introducing a completely rebuilt XML Grid View, support for XSLT3 for XML data mapping, statistics and charts for monitoring FlowForce Server, and much more. Let’s take a look at the highlights of Altova Software Version 2021 Release 2.
Web and web services developers often need to send HTTP requests – whether for testing APIs, testing REST and SOAP web services, or managing web sites.
XMLSpy makes it easy to send and receive HTTP requests directly in the XML and JSON editor during development with its HTTP Window and WADL/WSDL Import Wizard, a great time-saving tool for debugging web services.
In Version 2020, Altova introduced an entirely new approach to JSON editing in XMLSpy called JSON Grid View. This visual JSON editor offers a graphical representation of the JSON document structure that is immediately easier to understand and work with than the corresponding JSON code in a text editor, especially for long, complex documents with multiple nested levels of arrays and objects.
With each release we improve upon the list of unique editing tools in JSON Grid. Let’s take a look at some important updates announced in Version 2021, which was released in October of 2020.
As standards-based technologies and their applications evolve, so does the functionality that users require from developer tools. In our latest release, we’ve added new ways to work with XBRL, JSON, EDI, and more that help Altova customers work faster and more efficiently.
Let’s take a look at some highlights from the Altova Software Version 2021 release.
Interested in finding something worthwhile and entertaining to teach your children for free while they are participating in remote learning at home? Why not teach them about computer programming. This is a skill that will serve them well in life no matter what path they take.
The latest release of XMLSpy
adds several user-requested features for working with JSON and XML, as well as
new functionality for debugging XPath, updated standards and database support,
and more.
Compared to traditional paper forms, fillable PDF forms offer numerous benefits – aside from saving trees – including removing issues with legibility, allowing data validation, reducing re-keying errors, and streamlining information storage and re-use.
I, for one, really wish my kids’ school would switch to PDF forms for the myriad back-to-school information pages that we fill out in triplicate every fall. Perhaps I can give the administrators a demo of StyleVision, which just added support for fillable PDF form creation.
Unlike other PDF form design tools, however, StyleVision also provides form workflow functionality via integration with StyleVision Server for extracting and processing the data that end users enter. Let’s take a look at how it works.
One of the really cool features added to XMLSpy a few years ago based on customer requests is the ability to embed external files – such as images – directly in an XML document as encoded text. This gives you the option to package all required data from various external files together in one large XML document. The functionality is also available for embedding images in JSON documents.
Let’s take a look at how easy it is to accomplish this in the XML and JSON editor in just a few steps.
Originally coined by analyst firm Gartner, RMAD (rapid mobile application development) isn’t just a hot acronym in app development for 2024 – it’s an absolute necessity. Waiting six to eight months for an app ensures that it will be completely obsolete once it’s finally ready for prime time: requirements will change, another app will fill the niche, or end users will already be entrenched with another solution.
In addition, a traditional, non-RMAD approach assumes you have a team of mobile developers ready to tackle the project, and for many businesses, hiring experienced app developers is a lengthy, expensive process. Outsourcing your app development work that well, either. Many have tried, but few have succeeded in getting third-parties to realize the original vision of the app, on time, and while ensuring the integrity of their intellectual property rights.
Luckily, with the increasing prevalence of RMAD tools, developing a sophisticated, full-featured app in a week or two – and with your existing tech team – is suddenly a reality. Of course, not all RMAD tools are created equal. Let’s take a look at the five top requirements you should demand in an RMAD solution.
Mobile phones bring a world of information to our fingertips, but functionality of even the best-designed mobile apps can be impacted by Web service errors that occur when communicating with external servers. Intermittent cell phone service in remote locations can also degrade app performance when looking up data.
MobileTogether, the low-code, cross-platform mobile app development tool from Altova, includes features that let developers gracefully handle Web service errors in mobile apps to avoid burdening end-users with unexpected app interruptions or cryptic error messages.
In an earlier post we explained HTTP error handling in a MapForce data mapping. Now we’ll look at the same Web service in a mobile app and describe error handling in MobileTogether.
From updated support for standards and relational databases
to several new data mapping options, Altova’s Version 2019 Release 3 product
line addresses developer requests and ups the ante with innovative new
functionality. Let’s take a look at the highlights.
There are numerous ways to implement searching and filtering within mobile apps. MobileTogether Designer allows developers to perform filtering on either your mobile app or on the server via a SQL query. Knowledge of each of these methods, along with the use cases for them, is an essential tool every mobile developer should possess.
This video tutorial continues to build out the books database project that has been constructed in previous tutorials. It will cover the steps needed to implement basic filtering in your mobile app. Additionally, it also introduces developers to the usage of user defined XQuery functions which provide a method to centralize application logic.
If you’re new to MobileTogether Designer, please take a moment to view the MobileTogether Demos page where we have provided links to additional video tutorials and demo apps.
Altova Software Version 2019 introduces over 20 new features to help you sharpen your development game – starting with support for high-res monitors in both XMLSpy and UModel. There are also tools for working with new standards and database versions across the product line, the ability to map and convert data in Google Protocol Buffers format, and much more. Let’s take a look at the highlights.
While XMLSpy might not be the first tool developers think of when they’ve got a JSON development task, XMLSpy includes comprehensive support for working with JSON, JSON Schema, and related technologies.
Over the past few product releases, we’ve added intelligent functionality for editing and converting JSON and JSON5 data to the product. We’ve completed the circle with one-click conversion between XML Schemas and JSON Schemas, as well as sample instance generation and JSON Schema documentation generation. And, most recently, we’ve added support for processing JSON with XSLT, XPath, and XQuery.
Let’s walk through some common examples demonstrating this functionality – and see how these time-saving tools make XMLSpy the only JSON development tool you’ll need.
Sound effects in mobile apps can reinforce functionality and make an app more fun to use. MobileTogether makes it easy and convenient for mobile developers to add a standard set of sounds to user interface actions across all mobile platforms. For instance, developers might want to add sound effects to signify the success or failure of a file transfer or database transaction. Or simply add a keyclick sound to a button as feedback for a user tap.
During mobile app development there’s often a quick action the developer wishes to let the user to complete or a message that can be delivered on top of the current app view – otherwise known as a pop-up window. These are useful for letting the end user complete a process or view a message payload without interrupting his or her progress in the app.
MobileTogether makes it easy to configure pop-up windows of any size. Let’s take a look at how it works.
MobileTogether Designer provides a powerful drag and drop interface that allows for incredibly quick cross platform app development. To help developers get started I have produced this video tutorial, which covers the interface and the steps needed to build your first app.
By the end of the video developers should be able to navigate the Designer’s interface and create a basic app that takes user input and performs an action with it at the press of a button. This is the first in a series of tutorials aimed at familiarizing developers with the ins and outs of app development in MobileTogether.
SQL queries with parameters, also known as SQL templates, are a flexible and efficient solution for repetitive data reporting requirements, for instance allowing users to easily execute complex join statements with multiple sets of values. DatabaseSpy, the multi-database query, design, and editing tool from Altova, includes robust support for developing, executing, and refining complex SQL queries with parameters, also known as SQL templates.
Prototyping SQL queries with parameters in DatabaseSpy can even accelerate development of queries required in other projects such as database mappings in MapForce or database data sources for MobileTogether cross-platform mobile apps.
The latest release of MobileTogether, Altova’s framework for cross platform mobile app development, adds easy-to-use tools for defining push notifications, the ability to embed apps inside web applications, and more.
Let’s take a look at these new features, which only add to the long list of functionality available for building today’s sophisticated, data-centric mobile apps.
When it comes to developing sophisticated software and data integration applications, the more building blocks a developer has at his or her disposal, the better. With each release of our developer and server software, we aim to provide customers with unique tools that give them the edge to get the job done – faster, and more efficiently.
To that end, Version 2018 delivers a unique HTTP testing window, 3-way file comparison functionality, support for SQL Templates, super-powered new server options, and much more.
We’ve been offering a centralized license server to all customers of our Altova server software products for quite some time. Now, you can also manage all Altova desktop software licenses with the same license server. This support covers all MissionKit products, such as XMLSpy, MapForce, StyleVision, etc., whether they’re licensed separately or as part of a MissionKit product bundle.
Doing so greatly simplifies license management for the IT administrator in your organization and allows you to maximize your usage of the investment you’ve made in Altova software products. The Altova LicenseServer can now handle the management of installed-user, concurrent-user, and named-user licenses for all desktop developer tools and allows you to centralize license management either on a per-department level or for an entire organization.
The development schedule using MobileTogether can be as short as a few days vs. weeks or months for traditional native platform coding. That kind of productivity makes it practical to build specialized apps that might only be used by a small number of operations managers, but greatly improve enterprise efficiency.
For instance, an app for the inventory manager for a manufacturing operation with just-in-time supply chain management can link to back-end systems to monitor inventory levels using any mobile device from anywhere in the plant or even offsite.
The latest release of Altova’s mobile app development framework introduces over 18 features with highlights including support for NFC messages, text-to-speech, the ability to read device contacts, flexible options for dynamic tables, and more.
It’s time for the latest release of Altova desktop developer tools and server software products, and this one introduces numerous innovative features across the product line, including a brand-new version of MapForce Server called MapForce Server Accelerator Edition for even faster processing of data integration jobs.
Let’s take a look at the highlights of Version 2017 Release 3.
In an earlier post on Creating Elegant Mobile Apps, we showed examples of a simple app and a complete mobile dashboard running on multiple mobile devices. Mobile developers can also delight end users by empowering them to customize the app experience. MobileTogether lets developers tailor cross-platform apps to each mobile platform and empower users through a simple and intuitive custom text size control.
Allowing each end user to set the preferred text size for viewing conditions and the device is both courteous to users and relieves developers of the task of determining the appropriate text size to work across all devices.
Smartphones and tablets are everywhere, and superior apps have created a population of demanding users with high standards for mobile performance. This can be challenge for enterprises that want to build mobile apps to support internal business goals.
Complicating development tasks, many companies have adopted BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policies that give users choice and flexibility while off-loading mobile device procurement issues. However, BYOD scenarios present significant hurdles for developers, who now must build apps for multiple mobile operating systems and screen sizes.
Enterprise developers in this environment need a tool that lets them quickly deliver a new mobile app or an updated version. Altova MobileTogether is that tool. MobileTogether lets developers design, test, and release one version of an app to run on all mobile devices, with interface features that will delight users across platforms.
Further, MobileTogether makes it simple to build sophisticated apps that connect to your existing backend systems and all popular relational databases. The MobileTogether framework includes the backend server for the mobile app, so developers create the front-end app and the back-end server logic at the same time and in one environment!
MobileTogether apps for enterprises can connect to existing backend databases and generate richly-formatted documents and forms. MobileTogether can also create gateways to existing resources by opening URLs and documents within a mobile app.
The Open URL/File action lets MobileTogether developers give end users the ability to open Web pages or files such as PDFs, image files, text files, etc., that are stored on the client device.
Using a cross-platform mobile development framework like MobileTogether is a great choice for building native apps, because the design environment takes care of rendering the app UI properly using the native look and feel of each operating system. You just have to build one design.
This gives app developers the ability to build sophisticated, data-centric apps for all users very quickly. To help this work, MobileTogether employs an RMAD approach along with flexible options for designing a beautiful UX. To help specifically with this last point are multi-level style sheets that let you customize and apply styles – either statically or dynamically – at various levels of the app UI design with just a few clicks.
Robust and repeatable testing improves any software development project. If you’re creating a mobile app, testing is especially critical given the unpredictable range of end user devices and location variables. Altova MobileTogether includes sophisticated Automated Testing features that let developers:
Record a series of user actions as a test case
Replay the test case in the MobileTogether Designer Simulator environment
Deploy test cases to the MobileTogether Server for replay on a variety of client devices
Retrieve Test Run results from the server and compare differences
You can even modify the app to fix a bug and run the test case again to validate the results of changes, which makes this an indispensable QA tool for your mobile app development process.
Coming a short five months after MobileTogether 2.2, version 3.0 ships with an impressive array of new functionality, from developer-requested features such as barcode scanning and automated testing support, to flexibility improvements in the form of multi-level stylesheets and print-to-file functionality, all of which are sure to set your apps apart from the crowd.
Starting with Version 2017, XMLSpy developers will have access to some new, time-saving productivity tools in their favorite XML editor, including a modernized Find/Replace dialog, an easy way to select all occurrences of a particular string, and a shortcut for finding a parent element.
I was amazed how much time and effort these new tools saved me right away – let’s take a look, and I’ll show you how.
It’s time for the latest release of Altova’s MissionKit and server software products, and this one delivers a huge boost in functionality for working with big data, databases, XBRL, and much more.
With support for Apache Avro in multiple products, additional databases and drivers across the product line, and two new XBRL specifications in developer and server products, plus a new way to build and process PDF forms, Version 2017 connects all the data dots.
What will be your favorite new feature? Let’s take a look.
