Free Visual XML Schema Designer

Those of you who utilize a contract first design such as in Sustainable Service Design have the need to edit XML Schema files frequently. If you are like me you are using a plain text or xml editor, as it gives you the greatest flexibility to express exactly what you want.
But sometimes it is great to have a visual representation. For instance when you discuss business related interfaces with people from the business. Eclipse is somewhat limited in this regard as it does not show the structures and types in context.

Visual Studio.NET comes with a great XML Schema designer which is part of the professional edition for a long time. Now Microsoft offers the Visual Studio.NET Community Edition which is a fully featured Visual Studio including the XML Schema designer for free.

Here you can see how it looks like:

It works even if the types are spread into several XSDs. And it shows the documentation. You don’t even need a Visual Studio project. Just drop the Schema into the IDE and off you go.

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