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.
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) has proven to be a durable business-to-business communication technology in use today with history dating to the 1960s and even earlier. Efficient EDI data encoding reduced transaction payload size and improved data transfer speeds at a time when messages were sent over teletype at speeds equivalent to a 300 baud modem. EDI standards bodies promote wide acceptance among enterprises, and systematic evolution of new EDI formats extends support across industries. EDI improves profitability and is a dominant format for e-commerce data exchange.
Despite the advantages, EDI files are barely human readable and need to be translated and mapped for compatibility with other business technologies. Altova MapForce is a graphical EDI mapping tool with native support for all major business data formats in use today, including XML, JSON, databases, flat files, Excel, and Web services, as well as the EDIFACT, X12, HL7, NCPDP SCRIPT, IDoc, PADIS, and SWIFT EDI transaction sets. MapForce can even automatically convert EDI to XML without the need to specify a target XML Schema or perform any manual mapping.
CSV files are a quick and convenient way to record structured data in a generic format. Because CSV files are so easy to create, multiple similar versions of very large CSV files can quickly proliferate. Often it becomes necessary to compare CSV files to find the desired version. In an ETL scenario, a data analyst may want to compare a CSV file to a database table for validation or to update data.
DiffDog, the unique XML-aware diff / merge tool from Altova, supports CSV as a native file format for comparison and can compare and selectively merge data CSV to CSV, or between a CSV file and database table. Let’s look at an example.
Software developers and other data professionals often need to examine new data instances before designing processes for efficient production. As JSON becomes a more popular format for data exchange, the tradeoff for smaller data payloads can be loss of clarity of the underlying data structure.
XMLSpy has supported viewing, modeling, and editing JSON files since 2010 and includes rich tools to analyze JSON data, including applying filters, formulas, and charts.
InfoPath, the popular business forms software from Microsoft, was sunset by the company starting in 2016. Without a direct replacement, customers have turned to InfoPath alternatives to facilitate forms creation and automated data collection.
Altova offers two alternatives that meet different customer implementation requirements. This article will walk you through some background information and help you decide which product to choose.
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.
Mobile app themes improve user satisfaction by letting each user customize the app appearance with personal preferences. One way to implement multiple themes in apps that report and visualize data is to offer users a choice of color palettes for charts and graphs. MobileTogether uses a combination of drag-and-drop UI design, the powerful Action Tree visual programming language for event handling, and standardized functional programming for data selection and processing. Developers use MobileTogether every day to create elegant cross-platform apps with rich charts and graphs in all popular formats.
The main chart configuration settings let mobile app developers choose any of four built-in color palettes or even define a custom color palette for charts and graphs as they design an app. Combined with dark mode and light mode display settings, that creates ten colorful possibilities for display customization. Rather than impose a design-time color choice, developers can leverage MobileTogether features to let users choose for themselves. Let’s look at an example.
MapForce supports mapping protocol buffers (Protobuf) to and from other structured data formats as mapping sources or targets. In the constant quest for more efficient ways to transfer, manipulate, and manage large structured data sets, Google has created a language- and platform-neutral data format similar to XML, but smaller, faster, and simpler than even JSON data. Tools are available to generate and work with Protobuf using Java, Python, C++, C#, Ruby, and other programming languages.
The structure of any Protobuf message is defined in a .proto file that defines each field name and value type. Altova MapForce lets users drop these .proto files into a data mapping as a source or target along with any other data, including XML, JSON, relational databases, Excel, flat files, REST and SOAP web services, and others. .proto files versions 2 and 3 are supported.
A MapForce data mapping creates compatibility between existing XML, JSON, database or legacy data formats and new applications leveraging the efficiency of Protobuf.
Excel began life as a simple spreadsheet tool. Over time, support for rich text styling options, built-in charts, and copy and paste formatting features has led many enterprises to create reports in Excel documents. This can cause difficulty when data changes and existing documents need to be manually updated for distribution to a wide audience in the familiar report style.
Altova MapForce, the award-winning, graphical data mapping tool for any-to-any conversion and integration, supports Excel data mapping to convert data to existing Excel documents while preserving styles and formulas in the original.
This feature lets you write directly to nicely formatted Excel files to update data at runtime: any designated worksheets, rows, and cells from the specified file will be replaced with data from the mapping and all formatting in the existing file will be preserved as-is. To protect functionality in the existing spreadsheet, cells with formulas are not overwritten.
Let’s look at an example of how to map Excel data.
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.
Creating business reports from data stored in XML and relational databases is a common requirement in most organizations. However, it’s often complicated by the need to have information available in both web formats and print-ready formats such as PDF. Altova StyleVision takes a unique approach to report creation by letting users design reports from XML, databases, and even XBRL in a visual way – and output them in multiple formats simultaneously.
Over the years, support has been added for output to HTML, RTF, Word, and PDF – and now, based on customer feedback and requests, StyleVision also supports direct output to text. Let’s take a look at how it works.
NoSQL databases are non-tabular databases that store data differently than traditional databases made up of relational tables. Two of the most popular NoSQL databases, MongoDB and Apache CouchDB, store data as collections of BSON (binary JSON) and JSON documents. These databases leverage flexible JSON schemas and scale easily with large amounts of data and high user loads.
Altova MapForce has long supported data mapping all popular relational databases and now also includes native support for data mapping NoSQL databases. MapForce includes functionality for inserting, extracting, filtering, and ordering NoSQL data. Let’s look at an example.
XBRL – the eXtensible Business Reporting Language – is a global framework for exchanging business information. The standard, maintained by XBRL International, is based on XML and designed to offer a standards-based approach to communicating and exchanging financial information between business systems.
The current version of the standard was finalized in 2003 and since then has received widespread uptake and eventual mandates from numerous countries and regulatory agencies, including the United States SEC. Adoption of the standard is due to advantages that include enabling automation and cost savings, better quality of reported data, improved analysis, and better quality of information used for decision making.
Despite its benefits, the complexity of XBRL presents a sharp learning curve for accountants and other stakeholders not familiar with XML, leading to errors and increased consultancy costs. In addition, coinciding with the adoption of big data technologies, XBRL has been used to represent ever growing datasets, which can be resource intensive.
XBRL International has worked over the years to modernize and simplify the standard in response to those challenges, and the Open Information Model (OIM) is an exciting and innovative solution.
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.
Altova Software Version 2022 is now available, with exciting new support for mapping and converting NoSQL databases in MapForce, pure text report output in StyleVision, and Windows 11 across the product line. The release also adds support for the exciting new OIM standard from XBRL International.
Low code software tools can speed mobile application development by freeing developers from routine coding tasks and encouraging focus on high level app requirements. However, some developers, project managers, and even entire enterprises remain wary of low code tools. These stakeholders are afraid testing and maintaining low-code apps will be more difficult and costly over time.
But not all low code or RMAD (Rapid Mobile App Development) tools are alike. A low code tool that is simply a user interface to a code generator and builds apps from a set of templates could be attractive to an inexperienced developer. When an issue arises, a highly skilled programmer might need to diagnose and modify the generated code for each mobile OS to create a solution.
MobileTogether is a cross-platform RMAD tool that works differently. MobileTogether uses a combination of drag-and-drop UI design, a powerful Action Tree visual language for event handling, and standardized functional programming for data selection and processing. MobileTogether includes a built-in Simulator window to instantly execute the app to test logic, view the UI as it will appear on a variety of iOS, Android, Windows, and other devices, and examine changes in workflow data during execution. MobileTogether also includes sophisticated automated testing features and a built-in debugger to test and debug apps with precision and examine app behavior directly in the design environment.
Let’s look at how some real-world app maintenance requirements are simplified in MobileTogether.
Altova XMLSpy and MapForce JSON tools have long supported JSON and JSON5 for editing as well as data mapping and conversion. As new JSON formats arise in response to real-world usage, the support in these tools is expanding.
This article will help explain the advantages of two newer formats – JSON Comments and JSON Lines – and show how to use them in XMLSpy and MapForce.
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.
My friend Casey used the Solar Tool mobile app created with Altova MobileTogether to track rooftop solar production for a full year now and reports some surprising results. We first wrote about Casey’s user story in the spring, when she anticipated higher solar power production as hours of sunlight increased. Casey expected the billing cycle that included June 21, the summer solstice, to be her best generation month. Her actual results were very different and worth investigating.
Prior to starting at Altova I had zero experience with both XPath and XQuery. The first task I was presented with was to train myself on both query languages as quickly as possible and produce a concise video that would serve as an XPath tutorial and XQuery tutorial. It was important to develop a thorough understanding of their features and capabilities because both languages are integral to app development in MobileTogether and querying data in XMLSpy. I started with a strong background in SQL, learning XPath and XQuery by building queries first in SQL, and then determining how to replicate them in both query languages.
If you’re a collector – and let’s face it, we all are – of anything from books to stamps to video games, you’ve got to check out the Altova MyCollections app.
This is a free app available for Android, iOS, and Windows, and you can actually install it on all three concurrently. I love using this to, for example, enter collection info on my Windows laptop and access it on the go on my phone. It’s easy to share your collections with friends or make them public, and you can even list your items for sale or rent.
Check out this quick demo video to see how it works.
The best way to see how MyCollections works is to try it out yourself. Download it from your favorite app store using the links below.
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.
The latest release of MobileTogether introduces new tools for monetizing your apps and integrating them in new ways – making the platform even more flexible and useful for developers in firms of all types and sizes.
If you haven’t tried the MobileTogether framework for rapidly building enterprise apps and native apps for iOS, Android, Windows, and more, now is the time. Learn about all the new features below and try MobileTogether Designer for free.
The latest release of Altova desktop developer tools and server software products introduces support for the newest JSON Schema versions in all JSON-enabled products. This adds to support for previous versions of the JSON Schema specification.
Ahh spring! Birds singing, flowers blooming, and the sun rises earlier and sets later. All that extra daylight gives solar power generation systems more hours to make electricity. As the summer solstice approaches, solar generation systems enter their most productive time of year.
Owners of rooftop solar systems can be passionate about tracking their productivity. The actor and comedian John Hodgman even moderated a disagreement over obsessive monitoring of solar production. My friend Kasey is also enthusiastic about solar power. Whenever I see Kasey, she reports her latest kilowatt-hours stats. Kasey’s home is in a warm, sunny climate where air conditioning is her biggest electricity demand. She installed solar panels on the roof of her house at the end of last June and her system raced to generate enough power during long summer days to offset her air conditioning.
After receiving the electric bill for August, Kasey called her solar installer to report success – her home’s electricity consumption for the month was zero. “I have to confess, I read my meters every single day to see how the system is doing,” Kasey told the installer.
“Everybody does it,” the installer replied. “Some users even tell me they check the meters three times a day!”
Kasey asked me if a mobile phone application built with MobileTogether might make a good reporting tool for her solar power system. “I could enter the meter readings into my phone,” she said. “I can do it every day when I take the dog out before breakfast.”
That’s how our mobile app development collaboration began. The result is the MobileTogether app we call Solar Power Tool.
Web service data integration with MapForce is a popular and proven strategy to capture timely information for analysis or generation of user-friendly reports. In an earlier post we demonstrated API data mapping in 5-day weather forecasts for busy cargo shipping ports by reading Web service data in JSON format and mapping to richly formatted Excel spreadsheets. The weather API we used is hosted by OpenWeather, a provider of historical, current, and weather forecast data.
But integrating data from any API is not a set-it-and-forget-it task. When you build a solution based on external data, you have to react quickly when the data structure changes. Since our original integration project OpenWeather revised the data delivered by their API. The API now includes wind gust predictions in a JSON property separate from wind speed. Since wind gusts are suspected as a cause of the recent Suez Canal blockage the new data is very relevant to our application! Fortunately, both the MapForce data mapping and the Excel spreadsheet are easily revised to add new data.
Altova FlowForce Server is a high-performance workflow engine for automating enterprise-level data processing, data integration, and ETL jobs.
FlowForce Server includes a helpful web interface for managing and monitoring all aspects of data processing jobs, including in-depth logging functionality and a complete visual dashboard. Let’s take a look at how you can take advantage of FlowForce charts and statistics to monitor the progress of FlowForce Server jobs, as well as performance of the server itself, in great detail.
XSLT3 adds trigonometry and other advanced math functions, new formatting functions, functions to collect environment variables, and more, extending XSLT and XSLT2 XML transformation standards. Data analysts and other data professionals can apply XSLT3 functions to solve XML data mapping and integration challenges that require complex mathematical computations. Let’s look at some MapForce examples of data mapping with XSLT3 math functions using trigonometry and other complex math expressions.
Have you ever struggled with replacing an expiring software license because production in your organization runs 24/7? Maybe your biggest fear is that the application will stop running? Fear not – I will walk you through the replacement process so you can avoid any interruptions in service.
Though using the Altova LicenseServer is straightforward, there are a couple of tricks and tips that will make your life easier. For this post, my goal is to walk you through the process of replacing an expiring license. Be it a standalone or centralized license server, replacement is fast and easy. And we will complete the replacement of the license without any downtime to the application(s) being served.
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.
Recently I came across this note in a senior developer’s code review of a colleague’s work: “Slightly revised the user function to work correctly when languages other than English are used.” This was a surprising comment–the code is the code and it shouldn’t make a difference what language the developer or the end user speaks! A user function is simply an expression that may accept input parameters and returns a result.
Altova MobileTogether supports user functions in a cross-platform mobile development framework that combines drag-and-drop UI design and standardized functional programming for data selection and processing. Several MobileTogether demo applications are highly dependent on user functions and the MobileTogether Designer includes features that greatly assist creating and validating user functions.
Let’s take a look at user functions in mobile apps by examining one of these demo apps.
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.
Contract management is an important issue for most businesses, large and small. Given the breadth of approaches and tools in use, deciding on a solution can be a daunting task.
My take is simple: we use the Altova ContractManager for all of our contracts. We modified some fields to accommodate tracking of deadlines for trademarks and patents and storing copyright registrations. If you have a deadline or need to store odd documents, ContractManager can be modified to meet your need. It is a great platform that is flexible and easy to use. Perhaps I am a little biased since, well, I am the General Counsel of Altova and helped during the product design – which is an interesting story in and of itself.
Companies filing Country by Country reports as mandated by OECD will need to ensure compliance with Version 2.0 of the CbC XML Schema by February 1, 2021.
To help companies prepare, the Altova Country By Country Reporting Solution now supports Version 2.0 of the schema, adding to prior support for Version 1.0.1. The latest version of the cloud-based app also provides support for additional country-specific validation rules.
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.
Android and Apple mobile devices support a display option called Dark Theme, which you can think of as almost a negative image of the normal screen display. In Dark Theme white is black, black is white, and color intensity in general is adjusted. Dark Theme reduces power requirements, which can extend runtime for a battery charge, and can be easier to view in low light.
Altova MobileTogether includes features to let developers create mobile apps that automatically support Dark Theme by detecting the user setting when the app is launched.
The latest release of Altova’s rapid application development (RAD) framework introduces several new features that make it easier to customize and refine the UI of your app, with new features for styling controls, flexible options for users, and new logging tools.
Let’s take a look at what’s new in MobileTogether 7.2.
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.
Binary objects – BLOBs — can be cumbersome to manage in databases. In an earlier post we described a MapForce data mapping to insert binary objects into a database with generated metadata to identify the BLOBs later. The companion challenge in data mapping binary objects is to extract binary data and save it in a comprehensible form faithful to the original.
Binary objects are difficult to manage in databases. They are large, their content is not human readable, and they can contain bytes of data easily misinterpreted as control characters. Even the data type name for binary large objects – BLOB – reflects most database managers’ dislike of them. Before relational databases, the definition of a blob was “something undefined or amorphous.”
Altova MapForce, the award-winning, graphical data mapping tool for any-to-any conversion and integration, includes features for effortlessly data mapping binary objects to or from all popular relational databases. Data such as images, PDF files, video files, or any other binary data can be mapped. Let’s look at an example.
XBRL – the eXtensible Business Language – makes use of taxonomies as a standards-based way to define the specific tags that are used for individual items of data (such as “net profit”) in a financial report, as well as their attributes and how they relate to other data points. As such, different taxonomies are created for different business reporting scenarios.
Over time a staggering number of different XBRL Taxonomies have been developed to reflect the local accounting practices in various countries. In addition, many specific industries, such as construction and insurance, have created their own specialized taxonomies.
Developers and financial pros working with XBRL software tools need a way to download and manage the XBRL Taxonomies they need for their specific projects. Altova has long provided free installers for these taxonomies and their various versions on our web site, but we’ve now made the process even more streamlined with the XBRL Taxonomy Manager.
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.
Organizations of all types and sizes are faced with the challenge of storing and managing contracts in a paperless world. Locked file cabinets have been replaced by network storage folders that quickly become unorganized and don’t always provide the appropriate level of access control and security.
Customers have turned to digital contract management solutions and indeed there are many on the market. After our own search for a product that was easy to use, secure, and readily adapted to our business, we found that the field came up short. So we built our own.
Introducing Altova ContractManager – a secure, cloud-based contract management app that’s feature rich, highly-customizable, and affordable for firms of any size. Let’s take a look at how Altova ContractManager checks all the boxes.
We are excited to announce a new SaaS subscription model for Altova legal, financial, and regulatory apps. The Altova Cloud offers a seamless experience for users to simply log in and start using one or more Altova apps, without the need to download or install any software.
Let’s take a look at some advantages of choosing Altova cloud apps and what makes the Altova Cloud different from other SaaS subscription models.
In response to measures related to the COVID-19 crisis, the European Banking Authority (EBA) has issued updated reporting and disclosure requirements. These are designed to accommodate, for instance, emergency legislation on pausing loan repayment schedules and the resulting impact on financial institutions.
As such, the corresponding local XBRL taxonomies for reporting to the EBA have been updated with these temporary changes. Altova has published updated taxonomy installers that provide the most recent versions.
Additionally, the XBRL Taxonomies Installer for all other Altova products that provide XBRL functionality, including XMLSpy, MapForce, and StyleVision, has been likewise updated.
The .x3d file format is an ISO/IEC xml-based standard for representing 3d images. Also known as X3D, .x3d files originated as a way to represent 3D images for computer graphics. Over time applications grew from virtual reality (VRML), to CAD design, architectural rendering, 3D printing, medical and anatomical imaging, representation of molecular chemical structures, human animation, and more.
The Web3D Consortium maintains the X3D standard, with XML Schemas documented here. Current versions include definitions of more than 250 XML elements, over 100 simple types, 70 complex types, and more than 40 defined node groups.
It takes that much complexity to accurately describe anything from a precisely manufactured machine part to a richly textured virtual environment, especially considering lighting, texture, and point of view! XMLSpy, the world’s most popular tool for modeling, editing, transforming, and debugging XML and JSON related technologies, supports .x3d files. XMLSpy offers standards-based tools for anyone who may need to examine, exchange, consume, or validate .x3d files. Let’s look at some examples.
MobileTogether is a tool for building highly complex, elegant, cross-platform solutions. Developers need mobile app debugging tools to troubleshoot during development and understand app behavior. The MobileTogether Designer offers full-featured debugging of app execution flow inside action trees and debugging of XPath/XQuery functions. These features are provided in two mobile app debugging views integrated into a single tool.
The Actions Debugger view allows developers to debug the Actions of a Control event or a Page event. This view is available when an Action that has been selected for debugging is encountered during processing. The XPath Debugger view opens the XPath/XQuery evaluator window for in-depth tracing and debugging of expressions.
Developers can set breakpoints at various locations and the app, then execute one step at a time, pausing in either view to allow examination of the complete execution environment.
In an earlier post we wrote about using software
design templates for mobile apps to facilitate design reuse and make it
easy to build efficient, flexible options for various app requirements. We
described an example of a Control Template designed to present multiple levels
of hierarchical data based on user selection at runtime.
Our example was built using MobileTogether, Altova’s RMAD
(Rapid Mobile App Development) tool to help developers build cross-platform apps that
deliver dynamic, sophisticated app performance that delights end users.
You can also build Control Templates for cross-platform mobile apps by combining multiple controls into a larger unit, like a complex sub-assembly built from individual parts. This creates design templates for mobile apps that can easily be dropped in anywhere, speeding development and ensuring consistency.
MobileTogether is an easy to use, low-code app development framework that allows you to create sophisticated apps for all platforms from a single app design. Because MobileTogether is capable of building highly complex, elegant solutions, developers need the ability to troubleshoot during development to understand and debug app behavior.
In its latest release MobileTogether introduces a brand new, enterprise-grade debugger alongside other new features for defining controls, actions, and UI refinements.
Working with Avro Big Data in Your Favorite XML Editor
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.
Read more…
Automatically Convert EDI to XML
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) has proven to be a durable business-to-business communication technology in use today with history dating to the 1960s and even earlier. Efficient EDI data encoding reduced transaction payload size and improved data transfer speeds at a time when messages were sent over teletype at speeds equivalent to a 300 baud modem. EDI standards bodies promote wide acceptance among enterprises, and systematic evolution of new EDI formats extends support across industries. EDI improves profitability and is a dominant format for e-commerce data exchange.
Despite the advantages, EDI files are barely human readable and need to be translated and mapped for compatibility with other business technologies. Altova MapForce is a graphical EDI mapping tool with native support for all major business data formats in use today, including XML, JSON, databases, flat files, Excel, and Web services, as well as the EDIFACT, X12, HL7, NCPDP SCRIPT, IDoc, PADIS, and SWIFT EDI transaction sets. MapForce can even automatically convert EDI to XML without the need to specify a target XML Schema or perform any manual mapping.
How to Compare CSV Files or Compare a CSV File to a Database Table
CSV files are a quick and convenient way to record structured data in a generic format. Because CSV files are so easy to create, multiple similar versions of very large CSV files can quickly proliferate. Often it becomes necessary to compare CSV files to find the desired version. In an ETL scenario, a data analyst may want to compare a CSV file to a database table for validation or to update data.
DiffDog, the unique XML-aware diff / merge tool from Altova, supports CSV as a native file format for comparison and can compare and selectively merge data CSV to CSV, or between a CSV file and database table. Let’s look at an example.
Analyze JSON Data with Filters, Formulas, and Charts
Software developers and other data professionals often need to examine new data instances before designing processes for efficient production. As JSON becomes a more popular format for data exchange, the tradeoff for smaller data payloads can be loss of clarity of the underlying data structure.
XMLSpy has supported viewing, modeling, and editing JSON files since 2010 and includes rich tools to analyze JSON data, including applying filters, formulas, and charts.
Let’s take a look.
InfoPath Alternatives from Altova
InfoPath, the popular business forms software from Microsoft, was sunset by the company starting in 2016. Without a direct replacement, customers have turned to InfoPath alternatives to facilitate forms creation and automated data collection.
Altova offers two alternatives that meet different customer implementation requirements. This article will walk you through some background information and help you decide which product to choose.
How to Debug XSLT and XQuery
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.
For a more interactive debugging process, XMLSpy also includes XSLT/XQuery back-mapping.
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.
Read more…
New Features Increase Developer Productivity
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.
Let’s take a look at the highlights.
Mobile App Themes Improve User Satisfaction
Mobile app themes improve user satisfaction by letting each user customize the app appearance with personal preferences. One way to implement multiple themes in apps that report and visualize data is to offer users a choice of color palettes for charts and graphs. MobileTogether uses a combination of drag-and-drop UI design, the powerful Action Tree visual programming language for event handling, and standardized functional programming for data selection and processing. Developers use MobileTogether every day to create elegant cross-platform apps with rich charts and graphs in all popular formats.
The main chart configuration settings let mobile app developers choose any of four built-in color palettes or even define a custom color palette for charts and graphs as they design an app. Combined with dark mode and light mode display settings, that creates ten colorful possibilities for display customization. Rather than impose a design-time color choice, developers can leverage MobileTogether features to let users choose for themselves. Let’s look at an example.
Transforming and Converting Protobuf
MapForce supports mapping protocol buffers (Protobuf) to and from other structured data formats as mapping sources or targets. In the constant quest for more efficient ways to transfer, manipulate, and manage large structured data sets, Google has created a language- and platform-neutral data format similar to XML, but smaller, faster, and simpler than even JSON data. Tools are available to generate and work with Protobuf using Java, Python, C++, C#, Ruby, and other programming languages.
The structure of any Protobuf message is defined in a .proto file that defines each field name and value type. Altova MapForce lets users drop these .proto files into a data mapping as a source or target along with any other data, including XML, JSON, relational databases, Excel, flat files, REST and SOAP web services, and others. .proto files versions 2 and 3 are supported.
A MapForce data mapping creates compatibility between existing XML, JSON, database or legacy data formats and new applications leveraging the efficiency of Protobuf.
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Excel Data Mapping to Update Existing Documents
Excel began life as a simple spreadsheet tool. Over time, support for rich text styling options, built-in charts, and copy and paste formatting features has led many enterprises to create reports in Excel documents. This can cause difficulty when data changes and existing documents need to be manually updated for distribution to a wide audience in the familiar report style.
Altova MapForce, the award-winning, graphical data mapping tool for any-to-any conversion and integration, supports Excel data mapping to convert data to existing Excel documents while preserving styles and formulas in the original.
This feature lets you write directly to nicely formatted Excel files to update data at runtime: any designated worksheets, rows, and cells from the specified file will be replaced with data from the mapping and all formatting in the existing file will be preserved as-is. To protect functionality in the existing spreadsheet, cells with formulas are not overwritten.
Let’s look at an example of how to map Excel data.
How to Compare XML and Other Files
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.
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XML Reports to Text
Creating business reports from data stored in XML and relational databases is a common requirement in most organizations. However, it’s often complicated by the need to have information available in both web formats and print-ready formats such as PDF. Altova StyleVision takes a unique approach to report creation by letting users design reports from XML, databases, and even XBRL in a visual way – and output them in multiple formats simultaneously.
Over the years, support has been added for output to HTML, RTF, Word, and PDF – and now, based on customer feedback and requests, StyleVision also supports direct output to text. Let’s take a look at how it works.
Data Mapping NoSQL Databases
NoSQL databases are non-tabular databases that store data differently than traditional databases made up of relational tables. Two of the most popular NoSQL databases, MongoDB and Apache CouchDB, store data as collections of BSON (binary JSON) and JSON documents. These databases leverage flexible JSON schemas and scale easily with large amounts of data and high user loads.
Altova MapForce has long supported data mapping all popular relational databases and now also includes native support for data mapping NoSQL databases. MapForce includes functionality for inserting, extracting, filtering, and ordering NoSQL data. Let’s look at an example.
Learn About OIM for XBRL
XBRL – the eXtensible Business Reporting Language – is a global framework for exchanging business information. The standard, maintained by XBRL International, is based on XML and designed to offer a standards-based approach to communicating and exchanging financial information between business systems.
The current version of the standard was finalized in 2003 and since then has received widespread uptake and eventual mandates from numerous countries and regulatory agencies, including the United States SEC. Adoption of the standard is due to advantages that include enabling automation and cost savings, better quality of reported data, improved analysis, and better quality of information used for decision making.
Despite its benefits, the complexity of XBRL presents a sharp learning curve for accountants and other stakeholders not familiar with XML, leading to errors and increased consultancy costs. In addition, coinciding with the adoption of big data technologies, XBRL has been used to represent ever growing datasets, which can be resource intensive.
XBRL International has worked over the years to modernize and simplify the standard in response to those challenges, and the Open Information Model (OIM) is an exciting and innovative solution.
New Features in XML and JSON Grid Editors
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.
NoSQL Database Support and More in Version 2022
Altova Software Version 2022 is now available, with exciting new support for mapping and converting NoSQL databases in MapForce, pure text report output in StyleVision, and Windows 11 across the product line. The release also adds support for the exciting new OIM standard from XBRL International.
Here’s a look at the highlights.
Maintaining Low Code Apps
Low code software tools can speed mobile application development by freeing developers from routine coding tasks and encouraging focus on high level app requirements. However, some developers, project managers, and even entire enterprises remain wary of low code tools. These stakeholders are afraid testing and maintaining low-code apps will be more difficult and costly over time.
But not all low code or RMAD (Rapid Mobile App Development) tools are alike. A low code tool that is simply a user interface to a code generator and builds apps from a set of templates could be attractive to an inexperienced developer. When an issue arises, a highly skilled programmer might need to diagnose and modify the generated code for each mobile OS to create a solution.
MobileTogether is a cross-platform RMAD tool that works differently. MobileTogether uses a combination of drag-and-drop UI design, a powerful Action Tree visual language for event handling, and standardized functional programming for data selection and processing. MobileTogether includes a built-in Simulator window to instantly execute the app to test logic, view the UI as it will appear on a variety of iOS, Android, Windows, and other devices, and examine changes in workflow data during execution. MobileTogether also includes sophisticated automated testing features and a built-in debugger to test and debug apps with precision and examine app behavior directly in the design environment.
Let’s look at how some real-world app maintenance requirements are simplified in MobileTogether.
Tools for JSON Comments and JSON Lines
Altova XMLSpy and MapForce JSON tools have long supported JSON and JSON5 for editing as well as data mapping and conversion. As new JSON formats arise in response to real-world usage, the support in these tools is expanding.
This article will help explain the advantages of two newer formats – JSON Comments and JSON Lines – and show how to use them in XMLSpy and MapForce.
XML to XSD: Generating a Schema from Multiple XML Instances
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.
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Mobile App Development: Follow Up on a User Story
My friend Casey used the Solar Tool mobile app created with Altova MobileTogether to track rooftop solar production for a full year now and reports some surprising results. We first wrote about Casey’s user story in the spring, when she anticipated higher solar power production as hours of sunlight increased. Casey expected the billing cycle that included June 21, the summer solstice, to be her best generation month. Her actual results were very different and worth investigating.
XPath & XQuery Tutorial for SQL Pros (Video)
Prior to starting at Altova I had zero experience with both XPath and XQuery. The first task I was presented with was to train myself on both query languages as quickly as possible and produce a concise video that would serve as an XPath tutorial and XQuery tutorial. It was important to develop a thorough understanding of their features and capabilities because both languages are integral to app development in MobileTogether and querying data in XMLSpy. I started with a strong background in SQL, learning XPath and XQuery by building queries first in SQL, and then determining how to replicate them in both query languages.
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A Great App for Cataloging Collections
If you’re a collector – and let’s face it, we all are – of anything from books to stamps to video games, you’ve got to check out the Altova MyCollections app.
This is a free app available for Android, iOS, and Windows, and you can actually install it on all three concurrently. I love using this to, for example, enter collection info on my Windows laptop and access it on the go on my phone. It’s easy to share your collections with friends or make them public, and you can even list your items for sale or rent.
Check out this quick demo video to see how it works.
The best way to see how MyCollections works is to try it out yourself. Download it from your favorite app store using the links below.
How to Learn a New Programming Language this Summer
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.
MobileTogether Adds In-App Purchasing
The latest release of MobileTogether introduces new tools for monetizing your apps and integrating them in new ways – making the platform even more flexible and useful for developers in firms of all types and sizes.
If you haven’t tried the MobileTogether framework for rapidly building enterprise apps and native apps for iOS, Android, Windows, and more, now is the time. Learn about all the new features below and try MobileTogether Designer for free.
Updated Support for the Latest JSON Schema Versions
The latest release of Altova desktop developer tools and server software products introduces support for the newest JSON Schema versions in all JSON-enabled products. This adds to support for previous versions of the JSON Schema specification.
Mobile App Development: A User Story
Ahh spring! Birds singing, flowers blooming, and the sun rises earlier and sets later. All that extra daylight gives solar power generation systems more hours to make electricity. As the summer solstice approaches, solar generation systems enter their most productive time of year.
Owners of rooftop solar systems can be passionate about tracking their productivity. The actor and comedian John Hodgman even moderated a disagreement over obsessive monitoring of solar production. My friend Kasey is also enthusiastic about solar power. Whenever I see Kasey, she reports her latest kilowatt-hours stats. Kasey’s home is in a warm, sunny climate where air conditioning is her biggest electricity demand. She installed solar panels on the roof of her house at the end of last June and her system raced to generate enough power during long summer days to offset her air conditioning.
After receiving the electric bill for August, Kasey called her solar installer to report success – her home’s electricity consumption for the month was zero. “I have to confess, I read my meters every single day to see how the system is doing,” Kasey told the installer.
“Everybody does it,” the installer replied. “Some users even tell me they check the meters three times a day!”
Kasey asked me if a mobile phone application built with MobileTogether might make a good reporting tool for her solar power system. “I could enter the meter readings into my phone,” she said. “I can do it every day when I take the dog out before breakfast.”
That’s how our mobile app development collaboration began. The result is the MobileTogether app we call Solar Power Tool.
API Data Mapping
Web service data integration with MapForce is a popular and proven strategy to capture timely information for analysis or generation of user-friendly reports. In an earlier post we demonstrated API data mapping in 5-day weather forecasts for busy cargo shipping ports by reading Web service data in JSON format and mapping to richly formatted Excel spreadsheets. The weather API we used is hosted by OpenWeather, a provider of historical, current, and weather forecast data.
But integrating data from any API is not a set-it-and-forget-it task. When you build a solution based on external data, you have to react quickly when the data structure changes. Since our original integration project OpenWeather revised the data delivered by their API. The API now includes wind gust predictions in a JSON property separate from wind speed. Since wind gusts are suspected as a cause of the recent Suez Canal blockage the new data is very relevant to our application! Fortunately, both the MapForce data mapping and the Excel spreadsheet are easily revised to add new data.
How to View Workflow Automation Reports on FlowForce Server
Altova FlowForce Server is a high-performance workflow engine for automating enterprise-level data processing, data integration, and ETL jobs.
FlowForce Server includes a helpful web interface for managing and monitoring all aspects of data processing jobs, including in-depth logging functionality and a complete visual dashboard. Let’s take a look at how you can take advantage of FlowForce charts and statistics to monitor the progress of FlowForce Server jobs, as well as performance of the server itself, in great detail.
Data Mapping with XSLT3 Math Functions
XSLT3 adds trigonometry and other advanced math functions, new formatting functions, functions to collect environment variables, and more, extending XSLT and XSLT2 XML transformation standards. Data analysts and other data professionals can apply XSLT3 functions to solve XML data mapping and integration challenges that require complex mathematical computations. Let’s look at some MapForce examples of data mapping with XSLT3 math functions using trigonometry and other complex math expressions.
The fastest way to replace expiring licenses on Altova LicenseServer
Have you ever struggled with replacing an expiring software license because production in your organization runs 24/7? Maybe your biggest fear is that the application will stop running? Fear not – I will walk you through the replacement process so you can avoid any interruptions in service.
Though using the Altova LicenseServer is straightforward, there are a couple of tricks and tips that will make your life easier. For this post, my goal is to walk you through the process of replacing an expiring license. Be it a standalone or centralized license server, replacement is fast and easy. And we will complete the replacement of the license without any downtime to the application(s) being served.
XML Grid Gets a Makeover
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.
Developing and Debugging User Functions in Mobile Apps
Recently I came across this note in a senior developer’s code review of a colleague’s work: “Slightly revised the user function to work correctly when languages other than English are used.” This was a surprising comment–the code is the code and it shouldn’t make a difference what language the developer or the end user speaks! A user function is simply an expression that may accept input parameters and returns a result.
Altova MobileTogether supports user functions in a cross-platform mobile development framework that combines drag-and-drop UI design and standardized functional programming for data selection and processing. Several MobileTogether demo applications are highly dependent on user functions and the MobileTogether Designer includes features that greatly assist creating and validating user functions.
Let’s take a look at user functions in mobile apps by examining one of these demo apps.
New XML Grid and More in v2021r2
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.
A General Counsel’s Take on Contract Management Tools
Contract management is an important issue for most businesses, large and small. Given the breadth of approaches and tools in use, deciding on a solution can be a daunting task.
My take is simple: we use the Altova ContractManager for all of our contracts. We modified some fields to accommodate tracking of deadlines for trademarks and patents and storing copyright registrations. If you have a deadline or need to store odd documents, ContractManager can be modified to meet your need. It is a great platform that is flexible and easy to use. Perhaps I am a little biased since, well, I am the General Counsel of Altova and helped during the product design – which is an interesting story in and of itself.
Create Reports for CbC XML Schema 2.0
Companies filing Country by Country reports as mandated by OECD will need to ensure compliance with Version 2.0 of the CbC XML Schema by February 1, 2021.
To help companies prepare, the Altova Country By Country Reporting Solution now supports Version 2.0 of the schema, adding to prior support for Version 1.0.1. The latest version of the cloud-based app also provides support for additional country-specific validation rules.
An Easy Way to Test HTTP Requests During Development
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.
Create Mobile Apps that Automatically Support Dark Theme
Android and Apple mobile devices support a display option called Dark Theme, which you can think of as almost a negative image of the normal screen display. In Dark Theme white is black, black is white, and color intensity in general is adjusted. Dark Theme reduces power requirements, which can extend runtime for a battery charge, and can be easier to view in low light.
Altova MobileTogether includes features to let developers create mobile apps that automatically support Dark Theme by detecting the user setting when the app is launched.
Let’s look at an example:
New Features for Refining Your App UI
The latest release of Altova’s rapid application development (RAD) framework introduces several new features that make it easier to customize and refine the UI of your app, with new features for styling controls, flexible options for users, and new logging tools.
Let’s take a look at what’s new in MobileTogether 7.2.
New JSON Editing Features
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.
Data Mapping Binary Objects – Part 2
Binary objects – BLOBs — can be cumbersome to manage in databases. In an earlier post we described a MapForce data mapping to insert binary objects into a database with generated metadata to identify the BLOBs later. The companion challenge in data mapping binary objects is to extract binary data and save it in a comprehensible form faithful to the original.
Let’s look at how that’s done.
Data Mapping Binary Objects
Binary objects are difficult to manage in databases. They are large, their content is not human readable, and they can contain bytes of data easily misinterpreted as control characters. Even the data type name for binary large objects – BLOB – reflects most database managers’ dislike of them. Before relational databases, the definition of a blob was “something undefined or amorphous.”
Altova MapForce, the award-winning, graphical data mapping tool for any-to-any conversion and integration, includes features for effortlessly data mapping binary objects to or from all popular relational databases. Data such as images, PDF files, video files, or any other binary data can be mapped. Let’s look at an example.
Finally – An Easy Way to Manage XBRL Taxonomies
XBRL – the eXtensible Business Language – makes use of taxonomies as a standards-based way to define the specific tags that are used for individual items of data (such as “net profit”) in a financial report, as well as their attributes and how they relate to other data points. As such, different taxonomies are created for different business reporting scenarios.
Over time a staggering number of different XBRL Taxonomies have been developed to reflect the local accounting practices in various countries. In addition, many specific industries, such as construction and insurance, have created their own specialized taxonomies.
Developers and financial pros working with XBRL software tools need a way to download and manage the XBRL Taxonomies they need for their specific projects. Altova has long provided free installers for these taxonomies and their various versions on our web site, but we’ve now made the process even more streamlined with the XBRL Taxonomy Manager.
Let’s take a look at how it works.
New tools for JSON, EDI, SWIFT, and XBRL in Version 2021
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.
Manage Your Contracts in the Cloud
Organizations of all types and sizes are faced with the challenge of storing and managing contracts in a paperless world. Locked file cabinets have been replaced by network storage folders that quickly become unorganized and don’t always provide the appropriate level of access control and security.
Customers have turned to digital contract management solutions and indeed there are many on the market. After our own search for a product that was easy to use, secure, and readily adapted to our business, we found that the field came up short. So we built our own.
Introducing Altova ContractManager – a secure, cloud-based contract management app that’s feature rich, highly-customizable, and affordable for firms of any size. Let’s take a look at how Altova ContractManager checks all the boxes.
Altova Enters SaaS Market with New Cloud Apps
We are excited to announce a new SaaS subscription model for Altova legal, financial, and regulatory apps. The Altova Cloud offers a seamless experience for users to simply log in and start using one or more Altova apps, without the need to download or install any software.
Let’s take a look at some advantages of choosing Altova cloud apps and what makes the Altova Cloud different from other SaaS subscription models.
XBRL Updates for COVID-19 Requirements
In response to measures related to the COVID-19 crisis, the European Banking Authority (EBA) has issued updated reporting and disclosure requirements. These are designed to accommodate, for instance, emergency legislation on pausing loan repayment schedules and the resulting impact on financial institutions.
As such, the corresponding local XBRL taxonomies for reporting to the EBA have been updated with these temporary changes. Altova has published updated taxonomy installers that provide the most recent versions.
Updated taxonomies are included with any installation of the Altova EBA XBRL Add-in for Excel, and additional local taxonomies including BBK, BDP, NBB, and SRB are available on the product download page.
Additionally, the XBRL Taxonomies Installer for all other Altova products that provide XBRL functionality, including XMLSpy, MapForce, and StyleVision, has been likewise updated.
Examine, Edit, and Validate .x3d Files
The .x3d file format is an ISO/IEC xml-based standard for representing 3d images. Also known as X3D, .x3d files originated as a way to represent 3D images for computer graphics. Over time applications grew from virtual reality (VRML), to CAD design, architectural rendering, 3D printing, medical and anatomical imaging, representation of molecular chemical structures, human animation, and more.
The Web3D Consortium maintains the X3D standard, with XML Schemas documented here. Current versions include definitions of more than 250 XML elements, over 100 simple types, 70 complex types, and more than 40 defined node groups.
It takes that much complexity to accurately describe anything from a precisely manufactured machine part to a richly textured virtual environment, especially considering lighting, texture, and point of view! XMLSpy, the world’s most popular tool for modeling, editing, transforming, and debugging XML and JSON related technologies, supports .x3d files. XMLSpy offers standards-based tools for anyone who may need to examine, exchange, consume, or validate .x3d files. Let’s look at some examples.
Mobile App Debugging
MobileTogether is a tool for building highly complex, elegant, cross-platform solutions. Developers need mobile app debugging tools to troubleshoot during development and understand app behavior. The MobileTogether Designer offers full-featured debugging of app execution flow inside action trees and debugging of XPath/XQuery functions. These features are provided in two mobile app debugging views integrated into a single tool.
The Actions Debugger view allows developers to debug the Actions of a Control event or a Page event. This view is available when an Action that has been selected for debugging is encountered during processing. The XPath Debugger view opens the XPath/XQuery evaluator window for in-depth tracing and debugging of expressions.
Developers can set breakpoints at various locations and the app, then execute one step at a time, pausing in either view to allow examination of the complete execution environment.
Let’s see mobile app debugging in action:
Design Templates for Mobile Apps
In an earlier post we wrote about using software design templates for mobile apps to facilitate design reuse and make it easy to build efficient, flexible options for various app requirements. We described an example of a Control Template designed to present multiple levels of hierarchical data based on user selection at runtime.
Our example was built using MobileTogether, Altova’s RMAD (Rapid Mobile App Development) tool to help developers build cross-platform apps that deliver dynamic, sophisticated app performance that delights end users.
You can also build Control Templates for cross-platform mobile apps by combining multiple controls into a larger unit, like a complex sub-assembly built from individual parts. This creates design templates for mobile apps that can easily be dropped in anywhere, speeding development and ensuring consistency.
MobileTogether Adds a Full-Featured Debugger
MobileTogether is an easy to use, low-code app development framework that allows you to create sophisticated apps for all platforms from a single app design. Because MobileTogether is capable of building highly complex, elegant solutions, developers need the ability to troubleshoot during development to understand and debug app behavior.![]()
In its latest release MobileTogether introduces a brand new, enterprise-grade debugger alongside other new features for defining controls, actions, and UI refinements.