XMetaL Developer is a plug-in to the Microsoft® Visual Studio® platform. Using XMetaL Developer, developers and customizers can customize the behavior of XMetaL® Author and/or XMetaL® XMAX™. You can view and modify all aspects of an XMetaL customization including XML DTDs or W3C Schemas, scripts and macros, forms, and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) without having to leave the Visual Studio integrated development environment (IDE). Deployment is made easy by using XMetaL Authoring Customization (XAC) sets.
XMetaL Developer is compatible with Visual Studio 15.x - 16.x, enabling developers to efficiently create and manage XMetaL customizations using a modern IDE with advanced scripting and debugging features including:
XMetaL Developer is compatible with free Visual Studio Community Editions 15.x - 16.x
Updated format of XMetaL API java script intellisense support is compatible with Visual Studios 15.x - 16.x.
XMetaL's XFT form layout tools, XFT form dialogs, and embedded XFT form components all support HDPI displays.
This ensures that user interfaces are optimized for high-resolution screens, providing crisp and clear visuals, as well as an improved user experience across various display settings.
With HDPI support, the elements within XFT forms automatically adjust to scale properly, preserving the integrity of text, images, and UI components on displays with higher pixel densities.
XMetaL Developer is compatible with this most recent release of XMetaL products and XMetaL API.
The XMEdge ActiveX control facilitates bidirectional interaction between XMetaL and Microsoft Edge WebView2 using a subset of the ICoreWebView2, ICoreWebView2Controller, and ICoreWebView2Environment interfaces.
The Microsoft Edge WebView2 control is a powerful development component that enables embedding of the Microsoft Edge (Chromium) browser into desktop applications.
This integration allows developers to leverage modern web technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) alongside XMetaL APIs and scripting capabilities.
The XMEdge ActiveX control can be hosted within the XMetaL Resource Manager, XFT form dialogs, XMetaL Active Document embedded XFT forms, or as a viewer for an image or referenced content.
The XMEdge ActiveX control plays a crucial role in XMetaL, enabling web browsing capabilities and integration with advanced tools such as Grammarly, along with AI assistants including OpenAI ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot.
The XMetaL binaries have been updated to integrate seamlessly with the latest Windows SDKs and Visual Studio toolsets, ensuring full compatibility with the latest Windows 10 and 11 updates.
These updates include significant security enhancements, optimized installation size and duration, and the incorporation of user feedback to improve overall functionality.
Additionally, the removal of XMetaL's reliance on a specific Java installation enhances security maintenance, provides greater deployment flexibility, and streamlines the overall installation process.
Attempting to debug an XMetaL customization may fail with a message indicating an executable to launch could not be found. This is likely due to XMetaL Author being installed on a non-English version of Windows or XMetaL being installed in a non-default location.
To remedy this situation, ensure that XMetaL Author is not running and launch a command prompt with administrator privileges:
cd C:\Program Files\XMetaL 19.0\Author
xmetal.exe /RegServer
The XMetal Developer installer includes an automated script for integrating the Customization Guide and Programmer's Guide into Visual Studio. This automated script will not complete successfully if UAC is enabled.
To install these guides successfully with UAC disabled, follow these steps:
Attempting to edit an XFT form by double-clicking the icon in your XMetaL Developer project may display an error message saying "Unable to start XMetaL application. Exiting...". This is likely due to XMetaL Author being installed on a non-English version of Windows or XMetaL being installed in a non-default location.
To remedy this situation, apply the procedure documented here.
If you modify the CSS file for your XMetaL customization while debugging, XMetaL Author may display an error message indicating it failed to re-read the CSS file. After dismissing the error message, the active document might be redrawn as if no CSS was applied.
To get the document to redraw properly, switch back to Visual Studio and re-save the CSS file. XMetaL Author will reload the CSS and the document's display will be updated properly.
When you open an old XMetaL customization in XMetaL Developer 19.x, you are asked if you want to convert the project to 19.x. This conversion, however, has some limitations:
XMetaL Developer 19.0 is more strict in enforcing many aspects of customizations. In particular, if you had multiple CTM files in your project, the 19.0 build process fails. To rectify this problem, follow the instructions provided in the error messages during build, e.g., remove the extra CTM files from your project (leaving only one) or set the other CTM files' UseAs property to "<not set>" (causing XMetaL Author to ignore these files).
If the conversion process fails, (e.g., if your project is complex) you must re-create the project from existing files. In many cases, this may be a better method of upgrading your XMetaL Developer customizations to 19.0 than attempting to convert.
If XMAX is hosted in Internet Explorer and the Google Toolbar is installed, ShowSpellChecker() may fail.
When debugging your XMetaL Developer project, beware that the 'RulesFile' property returns an empty string instead of a path to the rlx/rld file.
If you are debugging scripts in XMetaL Author or XMetaL XMAX from the XMetaL Developer IDE, the property Document.IsValid does not return reliable results. In addition, the property Selection.IsValid may take a very long time to return values, or cause your development system to lock up altogether.
When a customization is configured to use a custom container application written in VB.NET for XMAX when debugging, an error message that states "The memory could not be "read"." is displayed when the custom container application is closed. This error can be ignored. The error does not occur when the customization is built.
The i ntellisense functionality is dependent on some automatically generated lines of code that are added to all scripts created inside XMetaL Developer. Do not change any of this generated code, otherwise Intellisense functionality may be lost. This generated code is automatically removed when the MCR files are built and will not be present or affect deployed customizations.
Using a hard-coded number for the CommandBarButton and CommandBarPopup
properties named FaceID in a script may produce unexpected results.
Scripts should generate these numbers by using
CommandBarButton.FaceId=Application.MakeFaceId(strIconSet,
longRow, longNum)
or
CommandBarPopup.FaceId=Application.MakeFaceId(strIconSet,
longRow, longNum)
The Rules Maker only compiles XML and SGML DTDs; it does not compile W3C Schemas.
For a list of telephone support offerings, online service options, and support downloads, visit http://na.justsystems.com/support.
To contact XMetaL support directly, e-mail us at [email protected], or telephone us at one of the numbers listed at http://xmetal.com/content-about-contact-us/.