Visual XSLT is ActiveState's full-featured XSLT plug-in for Visual Studio .NET. Developers who are familiar with Visual Studio can use the same powerful tool set and intuitive environment to write XSLT programs. Complete with "F1 is your friend" integrated help, tutorials and a complete XSLT manual and reference guide, this is arguably the most powerful XSL editor-debugger to hit the market yet!

I think its a safe bet to say that whatever is possible in the Visual Studio.NET IDE that can be translated to a feature analogous to XSLT and transformations, ActiveState has put it into this product:

• HTML output is automatically displayed in a browser window if the project's properties are configured to generate HTML output.
• Syntax errors are automatically added to the Task List
• When syntax errors are repaired, the items are removed from the Task List
• Manual entries can be also added to the Task List
• Comments prefixed with the text TODO: are added to the Task List
• Color coding of XSL and XSLT elements / variables
• "Intellisense" droplists of possible selections by context while typing
• Setting of breakpoints both in XML and Stylesheet
• All familiar debug features: "F11" stepping, highlighting of active code lines in XML and XSLT documents, syntax error flagging, tracking of variables in the Watch window, and much more.

The User Guide is both extensive and complete:

The product is easy to use and intuitive. You create a new project in the IDE just as you would any other new project by selecting it from the main new Project window:

Once you are up and running, you can debug your project with breakpoints just as with any other type of .NET project:

As can be seen from my reduced desktop capture above, I am single-stepping off of an XSLT template breakpoint set at the template match="Order" line in the upper (XSLT) window, and you can see that the yellow highlight is tracking the code path in the lower (XML input) window. I have a Watch set on the Family variable in the lower left Watch window, and I can view the HTML output in the lower right Output window as it's being formed!

Visual XSLT Features the XSLT Debugger , XSLT Editor, Class Browser, Source Code Control, Project Manager and Online Help.

You can create quality XSLT code easily, making it simple to find problems in both input data and code. You can accelerate your development cycles by viewing your transformation results immediately.

The debugger features a choice of XSLT Engine - Choose from the Microsoft .NET component System.Xsl or the open source Xalan XSLT engines with synchronized debugging - while debugging, Visual XSLT will indicate the current line in both the XSLT program and the XML input file. You can set XML Breakpoints in both the XML input file and the XSLT program.

You can do XPath Expression Evaluation - enter an XPath expressions in the Watch window while the debugger is running, experiment with advanced constructs in a riskless environment, and copy the correct XPath expression into the code.

You have the call stack - move up and down the call stack easily, understand how a particular point in the program was reached, and evaluate XPath expressions within different contexts. And finally, the XSLT Editor will increase your productivity with features that allow you to easily write and edit your XSLT code.

In sum, if you work with XML and XSLT in a production - ready development environment as I do, and you are using the new Visual Studio .NET IDE, it makes a lot of sense to plug your XML / XSL development into the IDE as well. At $295 for a commercial license, Visual XSLT from ActiveState is an excellent value; the savings because of productivity gains that you'll experience will quickly pay for the product, usually on your very first project.

Peter Bromberg is an independent consultant specializing in distributed .NET solutions Inc. in Orlando and a co-developer of the EggheadCafe.com developer website. He can be reached at pbromberg@yahoo.com