XML has become more popular as an authoring format, and it brings with it the frustrating choice between typing tags ad nauseum, or adopting XML GUIs that may be too expensive, too buggy or too proprietary for preference. Numerous systems, formats and tools have sprung up to provide useful authoring formats for XML.

Arnold deVos announces Simple Outline XML (SOX), "an alternative syntax for XML. [SOX] is useful for reading and creating XML content in a text editor." SOX supports elements, attributes and text only right now. Arnold also announces http://www.langdale.com.au/styler/styler, a Java XMLReader class that reads SOX source and provides corresponding SAX events.

Scott Sweeney announces SLiP and SLIDE. SLiP ("Sorta Like Python") is a short hand syntax for XML that looks somewhat like Python source. SLIDE ("Sorta Like an IDE") is a lightweight Windows executable for editing the SLiP format. See the announcement for more details. Also see the rest of this thread for similar ideas developed by others.

Also see the following projects which are tailored as simple documentation formats that can be converted to XML:

• StructuredTextNG, for which there is also a Wiki.
• WikiText (used by most Wikis and the Linux Documentation Project)