Product Reviews
WSDL Editor
Cape Clear's excellent—and free—Web Services editor.
CapeClear has released a new version of their excellent freeware WSDL
editor. If you prefer to work with Web Services by defining the interface
first and then implementing the code, a tool like this is essential. Why
would you want to do such a thing? Well, the WSDL is the public face of
your Web Service—it's the only part that other developers ever see.
Your implementation details are locked in a black box (unless you choose
to share your code). So it only makes sense to make sure that the WSDL
accurately describes your intended interfaces.
The editor provides a treeview showing the structure of the file that
you're working with (which can be created from scratch or opened from
a disk or a URL). The right pane changes as you move through the tree,
offering dedicated editors or raw XML depending on which piece you're
looking at. For example, if you're working with a binding, there are spaces
to fill in the binding name and documentation, select the port type, and
so on.
New features include support for validation and schemas, wizards for
common operations, and full support for WSDL 1.1 and WSDL documentation.
Even if you don't care to use a tool that depends on having the Java runtime
environment installed, you may want to snag this one just to read the
excellent tutorial material about WSDL in their user guide. And if you
like it, bear in mind that the WSDL Editor was extracted from the full
Cape Clear Web Services development environment.
About the Author
Mike Gunderloy, MCSE, MCSD, MCDBA, is a former MCP columnist and the author of numerous development books.