While reading an article on the best free tools for your PC, I spotted a product called XML Notepad 2007. This is a free download from Microsoft. I decided to give it a try. We are moving to an XML format for input files next year.The download was not too large. What really impressed me was how fast the tool installed. Sure it is just a little XML tool. But these days even the simple tools seem to take forever to install. In contrast, once installed, the tool seemed to take a while to launch.
The “read me” file that came with the install said XML Notepad 2007 has been downloaded over one million times. I wonder whether that was the number of downloaded at the time when they released this version (v2.5). Or perhaps the application calls home to Microsoft to determine the current counts.
The application has a right pane which show information from your XML document. At first it seems sparse. But it fills up as you select items in the tree on the left hand pane. This application feels like a simple viewer. However it states that you can use it to create XML documents as well.
I found the tree like structure on the left hand pane useful for determining the structure of the XML in some test files. In other words I could see the hierarchy of parent and child relationships. Make no mistake. This product is no XMLSpy. But it will do until my company can purchase me an XMLSpy product.
