XML is being used more and more in document file formats. Such formats as Docbook, and DITA have been used to help provide a common format for document meta data. It helps separate the content from the presentation. As word processor formats move to XML like OpenOfficeXML and OpenDocument, it becomes more critical to have a WYSIWYG interface for these file formats. Most users that have to write books, articles, and other print related material don't want to deal with the tag markups for the files, but they want the convience and separation of presentation that these formats provide.

The Visual XML Editor is a set of plugins that provide WYSIWYG editing ability for XML files. This can be used regardless of the XML involved, and uses CSS stylesheets to provide the formatting for the presentation layer. All that is needed is an stylesheet and an appropriate XML file to edit. It hides the XML tags from the user, allow them to have a word processor like experience but store the information in the native XML format.

Vex will be based off of a contribution from the Vex (Visual Editor for XML) project, originally created by John Krasnay and hosted at sourceforge.net. This code was donated to eclipse and has been an Eclipse Web Tools Incubator component. The goal of the project is to provide a WYSIWYG XML Editor primarily targeted for those using XML authoring file formats. It will be leverage existing XML support and frameworks from the Web Developers Tools project. Particularly, the Structure Source Editor, as well as the WTP validation frameworks. It will also make use of the DTD and XML schema support for the files as well. It provides a plugin architecture that allows for the use with any arbiturary xml file, and creation of new CSS style sheets that can be used with existing known document formats.

All code is currently incubating with in the Web Tools Incubator project. The current committers are shooting for a spring graduation date. The code has consisten Hudson builds, and is using Git as the sour code control system. Builds are using Maven 3 and Tycho. P2 update sites are available. The code supports DITA and DocBook formats out of the box.

All code has been reviewed and approved through the Eclipse IP Process. There are no outstanding CQs that need to be completed or approved. All past contributors on the SourceForge project have approved the relicensing of the code under the Eclipse Public License.

The following individuals are proposed as initial committers to the project:

We welcome additional committers and contributions.

The following Architecture Council members will mentor this project:

The following individuals, organisations, companies and projects have expressed interest in this project:

The tentative plan is to get the existing code migrated and aligned with the Eclipse Development Process. This means that the code must go through the eclipse IP reveiw process. Once approval is given, the project can start to migrate functionality.