Home > Stylus Studio Rel 5.3 (Build 179) Release Notes
Stylus Studio Release 5.3 (Build 179) Release Notes
These release notes contain information specific to Stylus Studio Release 5.3. Build numbers (179, for example) are used to identify version-specific information where appropriate.
Installation Information — By installing this release you agree to accept the terms and conditions of the Stylus Studio End User Product License Agreement.
Contents
These release notes contain the following sections:
What's New in Stylus Studio Release 5.3
Stylus Studio Release 5.3 (Build 179) provides the following new features:
- XML Differencing: New for Release 5.3 Build 179 is an XML differencing utility that lets you compare one or more XML documents to a single document, or one folder to another. Customizable color-coding makes it easy to identify changes, additions, and deletions. Navigational aids let you skip quickly from change to change within the same document, and from one document to another. XML documents can be viewed side-by-side, or in a merged view. Tool tips on highlighted lines specify the type of change and, in the case of multiple source XML documents, the specific XML document in which the change occurs. When diffing folders, you can drill down and diff XML documents directly from those folders.
- New Source Pane for XSLT and XQuery Mappers: The XSLT and XQuery Mappers now include a pane that displays the XSLT or XQuery source simultaneously with the Mapper canvas. This enhancement lets you see immediately how changes made in the Mapper affect the underlying source, and vice versa. This is a great benefit when learning the intricacies of these emerging standards. Of course, the XSLT and XQuery Source tabs remain available for those who prefer a full-page view of the source.
- Fit in Mapper Canvas: You can use the splitters in the XQuery and XSLT Mapper to widen the panes that display the source and target documents. When you do this, of course, the size of the Mapper canvas is reduced. A new feature for Release 5.3, Fit in Mapper Canvas, redraws the diagram in whatever space is currently available to the Mapper canvas. The Fit in Mapper Canvas functionality is available as a button at the top of the Mapper tab, and as a short-cut menu (right-click anywhere on the Mapper canvas to display the short-cut menu). In addition, object placement within the Mapper canvas is now retained within and across sessions.
- New Source Document Tree Pane for XQuery Source Tab: The XQuery Source tab now includes a pane that displays a tree diagram of the source document you are using to build your XQuery. Drag-and-drop is supported, enabling you to quickly build FLWOR (For, Let, Where, Order By, Return) and XPath expressions in your XQuery source without writing any code.
- Support for Saxon 7 XQuery Processor: In addition to Stylus Studio's built-in XQuery processor, Release 5.3 provides support for the Saxon 7 XQuery processor.
- Create XML Documents from Relational Tables: In addition to the DB-to-XML Data Sources, introduced in Release 5.1, Stylus Studio now provides an additional way to render relational data as XML. Using the URL Builder, you connect to a relational database server, select a table, and click OK. Stylus Studio executes a SELECT * query against the table you select and writes the result to a new XML document. This is a great way to select an input document for an XQuery or XSLT composition.
- Databases Displayed in DB-to-XML and URL Builder Interfaces: Stylus Studio now provides access to all databases on database servers that support browsing (such as Microsoft SQL Server). Previously, you could access only a single database at a time.
- Set Limits for the Profiler: Displaying a Profiler report can often take much longer than the time required to evaulate the XQuery or XSLT itself. You can use Limit Trace Instructions and Limit Trace Levels fields on the Profiling Options tabs for XQuery and XSLT Scenarios to limit the number of instructions and/or the depth of the levels displayed in the Profiler report.
- New Document Wizard: Release 5.3 adds a new Document Wizard to the collection of XML Editor Document Wizards. JSP Document creates an XML document shell with a link to the JSP 1.2 XML Schema. This Wizard simplifies the process of creating JSP pages and can help jump-start Web application development.
- Continued Code Enhancements: Ongoing enhancements to features and performance.
Known Issues with This Release
Stylus Studio Release 5.3 has the following known issues:
SequeLink
When you connect to a database using the DB-to-XML Data Source editor, Stylus Studio displays a tree diagram of the database's tables and columns. Some ODBC data sources accessible using DataDirect SequeLink do not render database information in a format known to the tree diagram. For these data sources, no tree diagram is displayed. You can still write SQL/XML statements against the database, however.
Built-In XSLT Processor Limitations
The limitations listed in this section do not apply to the Saxon, XalanJ, and MSXML .NET XSLT processors. These processors are fully supported for processing and debugging in this release.
The Stylus Studio built-in XSLT processor supports the W3C XSLT Recommendation except for the following features:
- xsl:apply-imports instruction.
- xsl:number localization features.
- Some xsl:output attributes. The following xsl:output attributes have no effect: version, standalone, cdata-section-elements, media-type. The following xsl:output attributes are supported: method, indent, encoding, doctype-public, and doctype-system.
- xsl:preserve-space instruction.
- xsl:strip-space instruction. While Stylus Studio does not support the xsl:strip-space instruction, Stylus Studio automatically strips text nodes that contain only white space.
- Simplified stylesheet syntax described in the XSLT Recommendation, Section 2.3. (The simplified syntax is not needed when you are using Stylus Studio to edit a stylesheet.)
- xsl:sort attributes lang and case-order.
- Extension element mechanism described in the XSLT Recommendation, Section 14. (Stylus Studio does support the extension function mechanism.)
Use of the format-number() function requires a JVM that is installed on your system and accessible by Stylus Studio.
XPath 1.0 Processor Limitations
The Stylus Studio XPath processor implementation includes a behavior that deviates from the XPath 1.0 recommendation. This behavior, however, is consistent with the DOM data model.
- Adjacent text and/or CDATA nodes are not merged.
- The DOM data model allows sequences of text nodes. The XPath data model does not. If a sequence of text nodes appears in an XML document, the XPath recommendation specifies that an XPath processor should process them as one text node.
- The Stylus Studio XPath processor returns consecutive text nodes as multiple, distinct text nodes.
Miscellaneous
- When Stylus Studio processes a stylesheet that declares a CDATA section as the value of a variable, Stylus Studio converts the CDATA section to text.
- When Stylus Studio reads an XML or XSL file that contains all English characters, it defaults to a font that cannot display Japanese. If you add Japanese characters and then save, close, and reopen the document, Stylus Studio uses a font that can display the Japanese characters.
- When Stylus Studio reads an XML or XSL file that contains all English characters, it defaults to a font that cannot display Japanese. If you add Japanese characters and then save, close, and reopen the document, Stylus Studio uses a font that can display the Japanese characters.
Installing DataDirect SequeLink Server
This section describes how to install DataDirect SequeLink Server. You need to install DataDirect SequeLink Server if you want to create a DB to XML data source for a database that is not already supported by Stylus Studio (such as Microsoft Access, for example). You need only to install the SequeLink Server; the SequeLink Client is installed automatically, as part of the Stylus Studio installation.
Executables and User Documentation
The installation executables and user documentation for DataDirect SequeLink Server is available in two places:
- As a Stylus Studio download. This link downloads a self-extracting file to your computer. When you run the file, it unpacks the installation setup.exe file and user documentation for DataDirect SequeLink Server to the location you specify.
- In the \DataDirect\SequeLinkServer5.4. directory on the Stylus Studio installation CD-ROM. This directory contains the setup.exe you use to install DataDirect SequeLink Server, and a portal page, index.htm, for the DataDirect SequeLink Server user documentation.
Installation Summary:
- Obtain the DataDirect SequeLink files from the Stylus Studio download page or installation CD-ROM.
- Read the user documentation.
- Run the DataDirect SequeLink Server setup.exe.
When the installation is complete, the ODBC drivers you configured are available as DB to XML data sources in the Database Type drop-down list in the DB to XML Data Source editor.
Third-Party Code
This release includes the following third-party software:
- XSLT software developed by the Apache Software Foundation
- Xerces C++ XML Parser, also from Apache
- FOP, also from Apache
- Dave Raggett's HTML Tidy
- IBM's International Components for Unicode
- Trang Schema converter from Thai Open Source Software Center, Ltd.
- XML Schema Validator (XSV), developed at the Language Technology Group of the Human Communication Research Centre in the Division of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, with support from the World Wide Web Consortium.
- DTDs and XML Schemas developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique, Keio University).
- DataDirect Technologies
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