NetworkedPlanet have today released the first version of the NPCL Schema Editor for Visual Studio 2005. This freely-downloadable add-in for Microsoft’s Visual Studio product provides developers and information architects with a graphical tool for defining a topic map schema (often also referred to as an ontology) using the Networked Planet Constraint Language (NPCL).

The tool enables the schema developer to create a new schema using simple drag-and-drop operations and to visualise schemas graphically. The output of the tool is an XML file which can then be directly imported into the TMCore Information Management Server where it can be used to generate ontology-driven interfaces for topic map editing.

The schema language NPCL is now used in all of NetworkedPlanet’s information integration products including the integrations with EPiServer and Microsoft SharePoint. By making it easier to develop a schema language it is our hope that developers and architects will be able to make better use of the power that lies behind ontology-driven development.

Future extensions to the editor are planned to support direct generation of SharePoint and EPiServer-based solutions from an annotated ontology.

For the developer’s low-down on the NPCL Schema Editor please see the postings on our OnTopic blog.

Update

Thanks to bug reports from a couple of early adopters of the NPCL Schema Editor. There is now an updated version available for download. If you have a previous version of the schema editor installed you must first uninstall it using Add/Remove Programs before installing the new version.

The NPCL Schema Editor version 1.0.0.2 is now available for free download from here.

If you do find any issues with installing or using the software, please contact us at contact@networkedplanet.com.