STAR is a simple, plain text semantic markup language for use cases and other business documents

The STAR tag language is much simpler, much easier to learn and much more convenient to use than XML. STAR is truly human readable whereas XML... well - let's just say it's debatable.

With STAR cost of entry is very low - anyone who can use a text editor (i.e. your stakeholders) can learn to write STAR documents in a couple of minutes and be productive.

STAR documents have "no chrome" - you focus entirely on the content of the document not it's appearance. This is perfect for project documentation such as use cases, where you need to capture the essential information quickly and effectively, and then apply a consistent visual style. STAR developers can develop new schemas very rapidly because they are written in STAR syntax. This allows a truly agile approach to project (and other) documentation.

Although STAR is a simple, human friendly, structured language, it can readily be turned into full-blown XML and can utilize all of the rich XML technologies.

STAR is very flexible and comes with a set of tools for transforming STAR documents into XML, XHTML and PDF. It provides an easy way to get your project documents (especially use cases) into XML without needing a lot of tools or training.

Included with the STAR package is a use case editor.