09/03/2003

Sonic Software has debuted Sonic Stylus Studio 5.0, its XML IDE. With this release, Sonic says it “raises the bar for XML IDEs by delivering the most advanced XQuery tool on the market today. Stylus Studio 5.0 provides visual mapping, editing and debugging of XQuery with industry-leading support for the May 2003 W3C XQuery specifications.”

Release 5.0 couples the Stylus Studio XSLT and XML editors with XQuery tools, making Stylus Studio “the most productive XML data integration tool available today<” the company says.

IN SONIC’S WORDS, new features in Stylus Studio 5.0 include:

--A unique XQuery mapper that lets the user draw links between XML data sources and XML targets, specify the functional logic for data aggregation, and generate the Xquery

--Powerful back-mapping technology that speeds XQuery testing-when a user clicks on an XQuery result, Stylus Studio displays the line of code that generated it

--An innovative Web service call composer for composing SOAP requests and testing Web services without writing any code

--XQuery and XSLT profilers that show how efficiently XQuery or XSLT code is being executed

--Support for multiple XML Schema validation engines such as Microsoft MSXML, .Net Parser, and Apache XercesJ

--Integrated support for the OASIS catalog standard, and access to a large repository of industry-standard XML schemas.

"Stylus Studio 5.0 improves on the excellence of Stylus Studio 4.x, and makes building SOAP servers and clients a breeze. The ability to request the SOAP messages from a server directly and build a style sheet to process those messages in an interactive environment will make development of future applications much easier," said Mike Basile, system development for ARAMARK, a world leader in providing managed services -- including food, facility and other support services and uniform and career apparel. "In addition, the ability to easily switch XSL processors from the internal Stylus Studio processor to MSXML, Xalan, or Saxon makes testing cross-platform XSL style sheets even easier. I never have to leave the environment and I can test XSL 2.0 features while developing XSL 1.0 style sheets. I look forward to the future development of a great XSL tool."

"In the past I have used and recommended XMLSPY for XSLT and XML development," said Paul Freeman, principal consultant for Architek Limited, a leading XML and technical architecture consulting company. "From now on my choice is Stylus Studio 5.0 for its excellent XML-to-XML mapping capability supporting both XPath and XQuery." "Stylus Studio has enabled us to move almost all of our mapping and transformation development to style sheets," said Ouen Worth, Technical Specialist for Quadrem, a global transaction, content, and sourcing solutions provider for the natural resources industry. "In an integrated e-Commerce environment, it is imperative that a development team be able to adopt and handle new message types and modifications rapidly. Stylus Studio has reduced our core development time by around 300%. With Stylus Studio 5.0, it just gets better."

"What makes Stylus Studio a better IDE is the input of a knowledgeable and motivated XML developer community. The rapid evolution that has led to Stylus Studio 5.0 attests to the value of this input," said Carlo Innocenti, senior architect of Stylus Studio. "Stylus Studio development is a model for combining advances in software engineering with the vitality of the developer community."