General
To promote the use of XML technologies in as wide a variety of IT solutions as possible by providing tools that support this.
Specific
XPath is sometimes neglected by tools, being a 'sub-language' in the XML family. However, XPath is used so widely in XML solutions that it is important that accessible tools promote its effective use.
The majority of XPath expressions use is probably to be found within XSLT, but to 'bundle' XPath tools with XSLT possibly means that some developers are put off adopting XPath, either due to the complexity of the tools or their cost.
By keeping XPath at the focus, SketchPath hopes to benefit from reduced cost (i.e. free) and a simpler user interface with minimal icon-clutter. Also, because XPath is not competing for room/time with other XML standards, more time can be devoted to extending and fine-tuning XPath specific features.
Who SketchPath is for
SketchPath was designed to suit the complete range of XML users who would benefit from using XPath in some way. Its auto-complete, auto-generation and 'assist' features should allow users new to XPath to quickly pick up the essentials. Seasoned XPath users should experience enhanced efficiency through the same set of features, as well as the 'power' features such as step-tracing and expression library management.
How SketchPath can be used
How SketchPath is used is down to each individual case and due to the flexibility of XPath will vary widely. This could ranging from 'one-off' copy and pasting of XPath expressions to developing and maintaining large XML libraries of expressions, that could be auto-transformed into XSLT or Schematron files.
XPath is used as a sub-language in many different environments, here are just a few:
Web Design: XSLT, Database Querying: XQUERY, User Interfaces: XForms, InfoPath, XAML Data Binding, Schematron, BPEL, Windows Vista Event triggers, Database Unit Testing
Future Vision
Improve the ability of SketchPath to integrate with other products
Create a more ergonomic and responsive user interface
Add features whilst still keeping the simplicity
Exploit .NET 3.0. Possibly providing a customisable XAML view of an XML document, allowing the reuse of stored XPath expressions for data binding.