Using Projects
Projects are very useful for organizing your workspace, applying settings to multiple files, and for setting up and executing batch commands. Using projects can therefore greatly help speed up and ease your work. For information about managing projects, see Creating and Editing Projects and the description of the Project Window.
Benefits of using projects
The following list lists the benefits of using projects.
•Files and folders can be grouped into folders by file extension or any other desired criterion.
•Schemas and XSLT files can be assigned to a folder. This can be useful if you wish to quickly validate or transform a single XML file using different schema or XSLT files. Add the XML file to different folders and define different schemas and XSLT files for the different folders.
•Batch processing can be applied to individual folders. The commands available for batch processing are listed below.
•Output folders can be specified for transformations.
Organizing resources for quick access
Folder and file resources can be organized into a tree structure, giving you a clear overview of the various folders and files in your project, and enabling you to quickly access any and all files in a project. Simply double-click a file in the Project window to open it. You can quickly add files and folders to a project as required and delete unwanted files and folders. When you wish to work with another project, close the project currently open in the Project Window and open the required project.
Batch processing
The commands for batch processing of files in a folder, whether the top-level project folder or a folder at any other level, are available in the context menu of that folder (obtained by right-clicking the folder). The steps for batch processing are as follows:
1.Define the files to be used for validation or transformation in the Properties dialog of that folder.
2.Specify the folder in which the output of transformations should be saved. If no output folder is specified for a folder, the output folder of the next ancestor folder in the project tree is used.
3.Use the commands in the context menu for batch execution. If you use the corresponding commands in the XML, DTD/Schema, or XSL/XQuery menus, the command will be executed only on the document active in the Main Window, not on any project folder in the Project Window.
The following commands in the context menu of a project folder (top-level or other) are available for batch processing:
•Well-formed check: If any error is detected during the batch execution, it is reported in the Messages Window.
•Validation: If any error is detected during the batch execution, it is reported in the Messages Window.
•Transformations: Transformation outputs are saved to the folder specified as the output folder in the Properties dialog of that folder. If no folder is specified, the output folder of the next ancestor project folder is used. If no ancestor project folder has an output folder defined, a document window is opened and the results of each transformation is displayed successively in this document window. An XSL-FO transformation transforms an XML document or FO document to PDF.
•Generate DTD / XML Schema: Before the schemas are generated, you are prompted to specify an output folder. The generated schema files are saved to this folder and displayed in separate windows in the GUI.
| Note: | To execute batch commands use the context menu of the relevant folder in the Project Window. Do not use the commands in the XML, DTD/Schema, or XSL/XQuery menus. These commands will be executed on the document active in the Main Window. |
Validation and XSLT/XQuery with RaptorXML Server
Context menu commands on project folder enable you to use RaptorXML Server for high-performance XML validation and XSLT/XQuery transformations. See the section RaptorXML Server for more information.