[Simple-support] Just started -- some questions

[Alan D. <Ala...@zn...>]

Hi.

Prior to recently hitting simple on a google search I had been doing all 
my XML processing with JDOM.  I was amazed at how easy the simple 
framework was to use for serializing objects in my new application -- I 
had my first successful run of it within an hour of downloading the 
code!  (Most of that was reading the tutorial.)

My compliments -- this is an amazingly well-done and professional 
software package.   I am considering using it for all my new code.

I did have a couple of questions which I haven't been able to answer by 
reading the archives.

1. Have there been any comparisons done between simple and Sun's 
XMLEncoder?   That's what I was looking at when I came across simple.   
Are there things that XMLEncoder can do that simple can't, and are any 
of those things on the roadmap?

2. Why are @Commit and @Persist and @Complete implemented as annotations 
rather than defining a java interface?

3. What is the preferred method for selective serialization?  What I 
want to do is include some elements based on a runtime boolean 
expression rather than always serialize them.

4. Is there any roadmap to providing a hook so you can control the 
formatting of the XML output?  (Some of my planned applications might 
have users looking at the XML files in an editor, and simple doesn't 
seem to limit line length.)   Also, it might be nice to be able to 
generate comment blocks in the output.

Thanks in advance for any assistance

-- 
Alan