Kernow 1.6 beta

I've uploaded a new version of Kernow (1.6) which contains the rather nice "XSLT Sandbox" tab. This tab has the XML pane on the left, the XSLT pane on the right and a transform button... and that's it. It's intended for anyone who wants to quickly try something out without the hassle of files, the command line or starting up a proper IDE. It does error checking as you type and highlights any problems.

It's available as the usual download from Sourceforge, or through Java Web Start. If you already run the JWS version it should automatically update itself (any problems just re-install it). I've finally figured out the temperamental errors with the JWS version - it turns out the ant jars included with Kernow were already signed by a previous version and so weren't being signed again, but because they were marked as "lazy" in the jnlp the JWS version would start anyway. (You can tell if a jar has been signed by looking for *.SF and *.DSA in the META-INF directory.)

The other improvement I'm pleased to have sorted out is that kernow.config (where all of the settings and combobox history are saved) is now stored in a directory called .kernow in your user.home (which is one up from My Documents in XP). Previously it would've been stored on the deskop for the JWS version which is really annoying - sorry about that. As usual it was a 10 minute job, but just took a while to get around to.

I've also separated out the SOAP and eXists extension functions into a separate package, so there's no longer the need for the largish eXist.jar, xmldb.jar and log4j.jar jars to be part of the download.

I'll release a non-beta version in a few weeks if no bugs are reported, and I've got around to updating all of the documentation.