VideosYAML Editing Support in Oxygen

Overview

Duration: 07:46

This video present some of the useful tools and features that are provided in Oxygen to help you work with YAML documents.

Transcript

00:00:06The purpose of this video is to present  some of the most commonly used features  
00:00:10that are available when editing YAML  documents in Oxygen XML Editor. 
00:00:16I'll start with a sample YAML document opened  in Oxygen. It contains data about a group of  
00:00:21people. The first thing I want to highlight is the  YAML Outline view. It displays the node structure  
00:00:28within the YAML document and the dependencies  between its components ... and notice that it  
00:00:33is synchronized with the main editor, so  when I select something in the editor,  
00:00:37the corresponding node is highlighted in  the Outline view ... and if I select a node  
00:00:41in the Outline view, the corresponding  data is highlighted in the editor. 
00:00:46The text filter at the top of  the Outline view can be used  
00:00:49to focus on a particular subset of components. 
00:00:56Note that YAML uses Python-style  indentation for nesting,  
00:01:00and that's why you see all those "special"  dots at the beginning of the lines. 
00:01:04These markers represent space characters that  YAML uses for indentation and really help you  
00:01:09when editing YAML documents because  wrong indentation on a key causes the  
00:01:13document to be not well formed. Notice that the automatic validation  
00:01:17presented the error in the editor,  as well as in the Outline view. 
00:01:23I'll remove the extra space  to correct the error. 
00:01:29Now I'll open a sample JSON schema  file that defines rules regarding  
00:01:33the structure and possible values of  properties and keys in the YAML document.  
00:01:38Oxygen uses associated schemas for both  validation and assisted content completion. 
00:01:48I'll go back to the YAML document  and show you that there are 2 ways  
00:01:52to associate a JSON Schema to a YAML document  in Oxygen. The first method is to configure  
00:01:58a new validation scenario that binds  the schema to the YAML document. 
00:02:03I'll click the settings icon to the right of the  validation unit to select my JSON schema file ...  
00:02:10and I'll complete the process  to save the association. 
00:02:18The 2nd method is to associate the schema  directly in the YAML document. In Oxygen,  
00:02:24I can do this by clicking the "Associate schema"  toolbar button. Then I'll select the JSON schema,  
00:02:29I'll enable the "Use path relative to the  file location" option, and click OK ...  
00:02:36and you can see that the schema is now  referenced directly in the YAML document,  
00:02:40in line 2. Note that if both methods are used  to associate a schema, then the schema specified  
00:02:45in the validation scenario has a higher  priority and hence is the one that will  
00:02:49be used by the validation engine. Now that a schema is associated,  
00:02:54I'll click the Validation button and you'll  notice there are a few errors reported. 
00:02:59I'll click on the first error message in  the Results view that's reporting a non  
00:03:03valid email address. I'll go ahead and fix it  ... and that error is no longer reported. 
00:03:09Now I'll click on the 2nd error that signals  there is a required "link" key that has no value.  
00:03:15I'll right-click the link property  and select "Go to definition". 
00:03:20This takes us to that particular  property's definition in the schema.  
00:03:24Notice that there is a thick bold  line connecting it from the properties  
00:03:28group component. This indicates that it is  required. I'll click the arrow at the end of  
00:03:34the component to navigate to its definition  to continue to analyze the requirements. 
00:03:40We can see that the "link" property should  contain "subordinates" or "manager" keys. 
00:03:46Now I'll click the go to definition arrow  on one of those keys ... and the conclusion  
00:03:52from the analysis is that "subordinates"  is defined as an array of String values,  
00:03:56while "manager" is defined as a single  String value with up to 20 characters. 
00:04:01So, now I'll go back to the YAML document  to correct the error. One major benefit  
00:04:08of associating a schema to the YAML document is  that it provides the ability to use the content  
00:04:14completion assistant that proposes the properties  that can be inserted at the current location.  
00:04:20I'll place the cursor at the end of  the link construct, click Enter, add  
00:04:252 blank spaces for the correct indentation ... Then I'll use Ctrl + Space to trigger the content  
00:04:31completion and I'll choose manager from the list  of proposals that are valid in this location. 
00:04:39The errors and the Results view disappeared  and the document is now valid. 
00:04:45Next, I'll demonstrate creating  a YAML file from scratch.  
00:04:50I'll click the New file button on the toolbar ...  I'll find and select the YAML template ... I'll  
00:04:58click "Customize" ... I'll select my JSON schema  ... and in my case, I want all 3 of these options  
00:05:06enabled ... and I'll click "Create" to  finish the document creation process.  
00:05:13The resulting YAML file conforms with  the structure and the data restrictions  
00:05:17expressed in the JSON schema I selected, and it  contains a "person" item in a "personnel" list.  
00:05:24I could add more structure in the new  document using proper YAML indentation ...  
00:05:32and the content completion assistant ...  
00:05:36and I can edit any inserted default  values according to my needs ...  
00:05:41and I could continue to add the  next property ... and so on. 
00:05:49Conversions between YAML and JSON are often  necessary and Oxygen provides some very useful  
00:05:55conversion tools that I will show you next. First I'll convert a YAML document to JSON  
00:06:02so I'll go to the Tools menu, then JSON Tools,  and I'll select "YAML to JSON". I'll select my  
00:06:11YAML document for the input file, I'll leave the  output location as is, and click "Convert". 
00:06:18I'll open the 2 files side  by side to compare them. 
00:06:22The conversion mapping in this case is quite  straightforward, with small differences between  
00:06:27the two based on the differences in the  language syntax of the 2 document types. 
00:06:33Oxygen also includes a tool  for converting JSON to YAML.  
00:06:46This type of conversion is very similar to  the other one, but in this case, you specify  
00:06:51the URL of a JSON file for the input ... and  I'll change the name of the output file ...  
00:07:04and it results in a converted YAML file. 
00:07:09Those two conversion tools are for individual  files, but Oxygen also offers support for  
00:07:15batch converting multiple files at once. To do  this, you need to install an additional Batch  
00:07:20Converter add-on that provides numerous batch  conversion actions. More information about this  
00:07:25add-on can be found in our user guide. That concludes this demonstration of the  
00:07:31YAML editing features included in Oxygen. Thank  you for watching. We welcome you to subscribe  
00:07:37to our various social media channels and we  always welcome your feedback and suggestions.

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