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| Below are answers to the most commonly asked questions about Authentic® 2010, the WYSIWYG XML and database content editor application from Altova.
Questions:
For more technical questions about Authentic, please visit the FAQ page in our Support Center.
Answers:- What is Authentic, and what does it do?
Authentic is designed for end-users at organizations employing advanced XML-based document frameworks and business management-oriented databases and is well-suited for use as the content entry and editing component in XML authoring, document frameworks and content management systems, Web publishing, and knowledge management applications. Users are typically non-technical business people, such as office managers, order processing clerks, salespeople, marketing professionals, copywriters, reporters, field representatives, etc. Information that users enter in Authentic can be saved to any content management system, XML repository, or database, where it can be made instantly available to management applications across the enterprise.
Authentic provides an efficient and flexible means for collecting information in a standardized format, which can then be easily validated and imported into disparate or integrated systems.
Back to Top - Who is Authentic used by?
Authentic users are people who create business content or collect and use information on a daily basis. Users of Authentic are often subject-matter specialists and could be reporters, analysts, lawyers, marketing professionals, order processing clerks, etc.
Back to Top - Why should companies or organizations use Authentic?
Authentic is a cost-effective and efficient tool for implementing a structured content solution for a large workgroup or across an enterprise.
Equally as important, XML-enabled applications and relational databases are two of the most prominent data storage and management formats in use today. However, they often lack user-friendly interfaces for editing and updating content, posing a significant problem for non-technical knowledge workers who need to access and enter content in these formats.
Authentic provides business users with a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) interface for content editing that shields them from the technical details of the underlying XML markup or database. Giving business users easy-to-use content editing tools increases productivity and efficiency, and at the same time frees developers and engineers to focus on the more technical aspects of their duties. Back to Top - What are some of the typical ways teams and organizations use Authentic?
Authentic can be applied to solve a number of challenges across virtually any industry. For example, using Authentic:
- A government organization can enable data entry into its main database across geographically dispersed sites
- A news media company can streamline authoring and editing of articles
- A retail company can accelerate product catalog creation
- A financial institution can more efficiently locate and re-use research information
- A sales team can automate their status reports without having to install or learn complicated and expensive database software
- Any organization can set up and deploy Web 2.0 components like blogs or wikis for users unfamiliar with HTML or wiki markup syntax
- And more . . .
Back to Top - How does Authentic fit with other Altova tools?
Altova XMLSpy® 2010, MapForce® 2010, and StyleVision® 2010 can all be used to develop information management frameworks that integrate Authentic as the content entry and editing component. The Authentic e-Forms through which users create XML and database content in Authentic are created using Altova's stylesheet designer, StyleVision. The same design that was used to create the Authentic e-Form also autogenerates industry-standard stylesheets that can be applied to users’ content at any time to produce output in HTML, RTF, PDF, and Word 2007+ (OOXML).
In addition, when XML content is authored in Authentic, it is then typically transformed, saved to a repository, or accessed via a Web service. Altova's developer tools, XMLSpy and MapForce, provide advanced functionality for performing these types of XML operations.
XMLSpy also provides support for working with database data entered in Authentic, and MapForce offers powerful mapping capabilities for integrating XML, database, flat file, EDI, and Excel 2007+ (OOXML) data.
Back to Top - What are the differences between the Authentic desktop application and browser plug-in?
Authentic is available in two different editions that are ideal for different deployment scenarios. For example, the desktop application includes a scripting environment, plug-in interface, and API for customization and integration into a variety of different applications, while the browser plug-in deploys the Authentic interface within Internet Explorer or Firefox and is useful for sharing content or creating and editing blogs and wikis in a WYSIWYG environment.
Back to Top - How do Authentic e-Forms compare to HTML forms?
Authentic is a powerful application that provides functionality including spell-checking in 18 different languages and vocabularies, auto-complete, and much more. Real-time syntax checking and validation automatically ensures data is valid based on predefined business logic, thus alleviating the need to write complicated client- or server-side data validation code. The dynamic forms of Authentic are ideally suited for Web-based information-gathering applications that take full advantage of the rich editing and validation capabilities of XML and XSLT that are not possible using simple HTML forms.
Back to Top - What servers and databases does Authentic work with?
Authentic features full support for standard Internet protocols and file transfer interfaces, including WebDAV and HTTP. This allows Authentic to be easily used in conjunction with the leading XML content repositories, including Oracle XML DB, Microsoft CMS via the Authentic Content Management Server Placeholder Control, Microsoft SQL Server, IXIASOFT TextML Server, XML Global GoXML DB, Lightspeed Interactive Astoria, X-Hive/DB, iLevel Software Insite Server, and many others.
Authentic e-Forms can be created in StyleVision® 2010 to edit content in the following relational databases:
- Microsoft® SQL Server® 2000, 2005, 2008
- IBM DB2® 8, 9
- IBM DB2 for iSeries® v5.4
- Oracle® 9i, 10g, 11g
- Sybase® 12
- MySQL® 4, 5
- PostgreSQL 8
- Microsoft Access™ 2003, 2007
Authentic® 2010 Browser Plug-in works with both Microsoft IIS and Apache Web servers.
Back to Top
 Authentic e-Forms are designed and easily modified using Altova StyleVision® 2010.
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