Benefits of Projects
The benefits of organizing your XML files into projects are listed below.
•Files can be grouped into folders on some common criterion. For example, you could group XML files and XSD files into separate folders. You can create any hierarchy you like.
•Each folder has certain properties that you can set. For example, a folder of XML files can be assigned a schema for validation. All the files in this project folder can then be validated in a batch against the folder's schema file. If you change the project folder's schema assignment, then you can quickly run a new batch validation. You can set several other useful folder properties, such as an XSLT file for batch transformations with a single XSLT.
•Batch processing can be applied to specific folders or the project as a whole.
•A DTD or XML Schema can be assigned to specific folders, allowing validation of the files in that folder.
•XSLT files can be assigned to specific folders, allowing transformations of the XML files in that folder using the assigned XSLT.
•The destination folders of XSL transformation files can be specified for the folder as a whole.
All the above project settings can be defined using the menu option Project | Properties. Project commands are also available in context menus of the project and individual project folders. In the next section, you will create a project using the Project menu.
Additionally, the following advanced project features are available:
•XML files can be placed under source control using the menu option Project | Source control | Add to source control. (See the Source Control section for more information.)
•External folders on your network as well web folders can be added to projects. This allows all the features of project folders, such as validation and transformations, to be applied to folders that are on your network or on the Internet.