Re: [xml-dev] persisting java object model..
The eclipse modelling framework may be useful - http://www.eclipse.org/modeling/emf/ It includes persistence of instances to XMI (the OMG standard from UML model and instance interchange using XML), and can be also linked to the eclipse editors for your GUI - -http://www.eclipse.org/articles/Article-Using%20EMF/using-emf.html .