Custom user tools are a great way to enhance the functionalities of XML ValidatorBuddy and to offer the user new possibilities to work with XML files. In general it is possible to call any executable, Java class or XSL transformation and to pass different arguments to the external tool. To add, delete or modify a custom user tool open the Options dialog from the Tools menu and select the "Tools setup" page.
A custom user tool is also a great way to use all kind of Java classes that support a command-line interface in XML ValidatorBuddy. The screenshot below shows how to add the JSONIX schema compiler to the application to convert a W3C schema to JSON schema:
Please note that you can put the path argument which is passed to the external tool in quotes to avoid problems if the path contains spaces. Several pre-defined variables can be accessed with the ">" button on the right side of the "Arguments" field.
One-click XSL transformations are also possible using a custom user-tool. Please note that you should not encapsulate arguments in quotes in this case as the parameters are only used internally and not passed to any external tool.
Below is a sample on how to add the simple batch log file XSL transformation which is installed with XML ValidatorBuddy to convert the XML log to HTML output:
If "Show tool as button" is checked the custom user-tool will be added as button to the bottom of the File Explorer view. A user-tool can also be invoked by command if the "Show tool in Explorer tab menu" is checked.
