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The best XML IDE on the planet is written in Java.

(And, no, I don't work for them; I've just been using their product on a daily basis for nearly ten years.)

That's kind of like saying "The best dog poop comes from $WHO_GIVES_A_SHIT." :-) xml was a big mistake we will always be paying for.

The best XML IDE on the planet is written in Java.

(And, no, I don't work for them; I've just been using their product on a daily basis for nearly ten years.)

FreeBSD has a Linux compatibility layer, so most stuff compiled for Linux can run on it.

I knew that, but had forgot--thanks for the reminder.

Most of the stuff I use is open source. My major sources of concern are:

a Java-based XML IDE (DISCLAIMER: I got a free 1-year licence from them a few years ago in exchange for them being allowed to quote me in some of their ads. Otherwise, I'm just a satisfied and [now once again, paying] customer.)

Skype (optional--it'd be convenient to have it running on the desktop, but it's on my phone and tablet, so I'm covered in any event)

my Nvidia GeForce card ()

whether or not I'll have to rewrite a bunch of shell scripts that are full of bash-isms.

I've played with PC-BSD before, but only in a VM. Need to dig out an old laptop and see how it goes on the metal.

I use Inkscape extensively for making maps, and it does pretty much everything I need. I export map layers as PDFs from Qgis and import them into Inkscape one by one, then save them as SVG for further processing.

Since Qgis' export to PDF and SVG sucks, it does require quite a bit of editing of the SVG file to reduce the size and get rid of invisible artifacts. But then one of the best things of working with SVG is being able to edit your graphics file with a text editor and doing, say, find and replace on symbols (to replace those nasty Qgis bitmap symbols for SVG ones) or text. Try that with Illustrator files!

Inkscape does not take advantage of multiple cores (yet), but opening a new instance creates a completely separate process so while one Inkscape window is busy thinking you can keep working on the other at full speed.

The sad part is that i haven't been able to find a free, fully-featured XML editor to do more advanced editing of the SVG file. Eventually I had to settle for oXygen, which is not free and kind of taints my workflow.

You are trying to reinvent docbook. Not only is everything you want done, it is implemented in several tools (XMLMind and oXygen are two I know of), has a standard method of converting it to any form you want (XSL, XSLT, XSL-FO), and there are tools that are already written to take advantage of those standards (Apache FOP being a FLOSS one). The latest version of DocBook uses XML namespaces, so you can mix in other markup languages as well; the canonical example is DocBook + MathML + SVG, which covers 99.9% of the math/science based literature out there. BTW, if you DO plan on going down this path, I suggest picking up a copy of XSLT, 2nd edition by Doug Tidwell. The latest version of the DocBook book is supposed to be out in August; don't buy the version currently on sale, it is 10 years old, and does NOT cover the current version of DocBook.

...God created DocBook and Subversion.

We use DocBook and SVN to author/edit/maintain the MySQL Manual and related documentation.

Most of us working on the MySQL docs team also use oXygenXML for editing - it's neither libre nor gratis, but it's not terribly expensive, and it works well on any platform with decent Java support (one of the few Java GUI apps I've seen that really works, and works well). Handles many common XML formats including DocBook, XHTML, DITA, and TEI. You can also supply your own DTDs/schemas for custom XML formats. Includes both code and visual editing views, as well as instant validation and a built-in Subversion client. Easy to produce HTML or PDF output from XML source. Also has some nice XQuery and XSLT tools if you need them.

My Mac SE/30 (purchased in January 1989, although I had to wait several weeks to get it) worked perfectly for 14 years. By the end it was running NetBSD rather than MacOS, but it still worked fine.

My SE/30 ran System 7. I've also got a Powermac 7300/200 which runs System 8. It lasted me several years, from 2000 'til early last year when it wouldn't bootup. Now I'm planning on getting a Macbook Pro and was thinking about setting it up to dualboot, OSX and Linux, Ubuntu maybe. But Windows will be barred. If I have to run a Windows app, and I haven't found a Windows app for which there is not an equivent app for Macs, I'll tryout Crossover. There was one I wasn't sure I could find a replacement for, XMLSpy, but a few other /.ers pointed me to <oXygen/> XML Editor.

Check out Oxygen, its a cross platform XML editor.

http://www.oxygenxml.com/

...I have never seen any java application where I've just said "Wow, that just worked."

The oXygen XML editor is as capable as XMLSpy, but costs considerably less at $180 or $230 with maintenance and is fully cross-platform.

I know it's not free, but for the price, it's an excellent tool.

That's completely wrong. People like SWT not so much for the performance but for the fact that it acts like a native application. You get sub-pixel rendering on LCDs, and so forth whereas Swing is constantly playing catchup.

This is a platform specific problem. While it's not perfect, Swing Looks and acts very much like a native application on OS X with full support for sub-pixel rendering, etc. One major exception with NetBeans is how the main menu is attached to the window, not the top of the screen. However, there are several other Java applications that move the menu bar to the top of the screen on OS X, such as SynRO Soft's XML editor, oXygen.

http://www.oxygenxml.com/xml_editor_mac_os_x.html

We use Oxygen - a java based XML editor that is fairly easy to learn how to use and quite effective. Since its platform agnostic our various Windows, Linux and Mac folks can all use it.

http://www.oxygenxml.com

Bridgekeeper: What ... is the best tool for editing XML?

Arthur: Do you mean datacentric XML or docucentric XML?

Bridgekeeper: Why, I don't know th...augghhh!

Someone has already mentioned jEdit as a Java editor with useful XML/XSL plugins. I'd add, especially for Mac OS X users, the oXygen XML editor, also Java-based, which provides a very comfortable editing environment with tag autocompletion and built in well-formedness checking and validation (including for XHTML documents, making it a nice Web editor as well). It supports XPath queries, has a built-in DTD generator [from well-formed XML], has a tree structure editor, and more. It's proprietary but not expensive.