Firstly I apologise if this has been asked before, but I cannot work out how to search this mailing list without downloading all the archives first. I am working through the XQuery in 10 minutes tutorial and trying this XQuery: declare variable $firstName as xs:string external; <videos featuring="{$firstName}"> { let $doc := doc('http://www.stylusstudio.com/examples/videos.xml') for $v in $doc//video, $a in $doc//actors/actor where ends-with($a, $firstName) and $v/actorRef = $a/@id order by $v/year return <video year="{$v/year}"> {$v/title} </video> } </videos> It's fine in standalone mode (command line), but I cannot find a way of supplying an external variable in the GUI. Thanks and regards.