VideosWYSIWYG XML Editing

Table of Contents

Introduction01:04
Visual Editing03:12
Framework Overview03:12

Overview
Transcript

Overview

Duration: 06:51

This demonstration will guide you through the basics of using the Oxygen's Author mode, which allows you to edit XML documents in a visual interface similar to a What You See Is What You Get word processor.

Transcript

00:00:07This demonstration will guide you through the basics of using the Oxygen's Author mode,

00:00:13which allows you to edit XML documents in a visual interface similar to a

00:00:18What You See Is What You Get word processor.

00:00:20Oxygen provides built-in visual editing support for the most commonly used XML vocabularies,

00:00:26such as DITA, Docbook, and TEI, just to name a few.

00:00:31For this demonstration, we'll open a DITA document.

00:00:37Notice that the document is presented in a familiar word processor-like layout, and various

00:00:42DITA-specific actions are available on the application's toolbar.

00:00:46You can choose to change the way the document is rendered by using the Styles selector to

00:00:51choose a different style.

00:00:56Additionally, we can apply styling layers on top of the main one.

00:01:04Now let's see how the actual editing can be done.

00:01:08Adding text content is as simple as doing so in a standard text editor.

00:01:13You can also use common keyboard shortcuts, drag and drop, and you can paste content from

00:01:19other applications or browsers and Oxygen's Smart Paste mechanism will preserve the original

00:01:25text styling and formatting while converting it to the structure for your particular type

00:01:30of XML document to keep it valid.

00:01:33For example we'll copy a fragment of formatted text from a web browser and paste it in our DITA document.

00:01:49Note that all styling and links are preserved and converted to a DITA-valid fragment.

00:01:55To add XML markup, you have several options: - you can use numerous predefined actions

00:02:00that are available on the toolbar and in various menus.

00:02:05For example, to add an image, just press the "Insert Image" button, choose an image, and

00:02:14press the "Insert" button.

00:02:23Similarly, to insert a table, you can use the predefined action availble in the toolbar.

00:02:29We choose a CALS table, without title, with 3 rows and 2 columns.

00:02:36Now we add content to our table.

00:02:45Another method that is suited to authors with some knowledge of XML document structure

00:02:50is to use the "Content Completion Assistant".

00:02:54It's a pop-up window that is displayed when you press the Enter key and it proposes a

00:02:58list of elements that can be inserted at the current position.

00:03:03We'll choose an unordered list...

00:03:05See that the first list item was already inserted.

00:03:13To insert the second list item, press Enter again to activate the Content Completion assistant,

00:03:18then choose to insert a new list item element.

00:03:24When working in a tagless editing mode, it is important to always know where the caret

00:03:29is placed in the current XML structure.

00:03:32Information about your current location in the document is available in several places:

00:03:37- a cursor location tooltip,

00:03:40- a breadcrumb representation of the current structural path from the document root to

00:03:45the current element

00:03:47- ...and ... an Outline view that displays the document's structural hierarchy and it

00:03:52is synchronized with the document.

00:03:58Depending on your preferences and editing habits, you can control the amount of markup

00:04:03displayed by using the Tags Display Mode selector.

00:04:16To be able to adapt to each document type, oXygen relies on frameworks (or Document Type

00:04:22Associations), which are collections of rules and settings that define the editing capabilities

00:04:27for that particular type of document when working in Author mode.

00:04:30Each predefined framework is designed to provide complete workflows from the editing stage

00:04:35to publishing.

00:04:37The type of things that are defined for each predefined framework include:

00:04:43- schemas that validate the documents of a certain type

00:04:46- all the bits and pieces of the Author mode, such as the collection of CSS stylesheets

00:04:52and the actions available in menus, the contextual menu, toolbar, and the Content Completion Assistant.

00:05:00- templates to help you get started with the

00:05:03basic structure of a new document - predefined transformation scenarios for

00:05:07transforming documents to published output.

00:05:11Note that you can also customize any of the existing frameworks or create new ones from

00:05:17scratch to better suit your specific needs or the requirements of your organization.

00:05:24Keep in mind that the graphical appearance of the document in Author mode is provided

00:05:28by a CSS layer.

00:05:30If you are trying to open a document that is not recognized as a supported framework

00:05:35or doesn't have a CSS associated, it will be rendered like this...

00:05:41Therefore, the minimum requirement for editing an XML document in Author mode is to have

00:05:46a CSS stylesheet associated with it.

00:05:49In our case, we already created a CSS stylesheet that adds styling to each of the XML elements

00:05:55used in our document.

00:05:57To see how the XML document looks like in Author mode, we need to apply the CSS on top of it.

00:06:02There are two ways to do this: - we can insert a

00:06:06simple CSS association rule using this toolbar action.

00:06:10or...you can create a custom framework that will

00:06:14be applied on all documents of that type.

00:06:18More information about how you can develop your own framework can be found in the oXygen User's Guide:

00:06:25For our demonstration purposes, we choose to associate the CSS to our XML file.

00:06:30Click the Associate CSS stylesheet button and choose the CSS stylesheet.

00:06:36Note that the rendering of the XML document changed according to the rules from the CSS file.

00:06:42And this concludes our demonstration.Thanks for watching.

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