Configuring the Layout of the Views and Editors

Arranging the Layout

You can drag any view to any margin of another view or editor inside the Oxygen XML Developer window. Once you create a layout that suits your needs, you can save it from Window > Export Layout. Oxygen XML Developer creates a layout file containing the preferences of the saved layout. To load a layout, go to Window > Load Layout. To reset it, select Window > Reset Layout.

Note: The Load Layout menu lets you select between the default layout, a predefined layout, or a custom layout. The changes you make using the Load Layout menu are also reflected in the Application Layout preferences page.

The changes you make to any layout are preserved between working sessions. The predefined layout files are saved in the preferences directory of Oxygen XML Developer.

You can drag the editors and arrange them in any order, both horizontally and vertically.

The following image presents two editors arranged as horizontal tiles. To arrange them vertically, drag one of them on top of the other. In the following example, the personal.xml file was dragged over the personal-schema.xml file:

Hide or Float Views

Hide: To gain more editing space in the Oxygen XML Developer window, click Toggle auto-hide in any view. This button sets the view in the auto-hide state, making it visible only as a vertical tab, at the margins of the Oxygen XML Developer window. To display a view in the auto-hide state, hover its side-tab with your cursor, or click it to keep the view visible until you click elsewhere.
Float: A view can also be set to a floating state by using the Toggle floating action, making it independent from the rest of the Oxygen XML Developer window.

Maximize the Editing Environment

You can configure the interface to maximize the editing area, leaving more vertical screen space available for the main editing pane. This is, for example, useful for presentations on low-resolution screens or for laptops with small screen space. You can use the following two actions that are available in the Window menu to create a near full-screen editing environment:

Maximize Editor Area: If toggled on, all side views are minimized to give you more horizontal space in the editing pane.
Hide All Toolbars: If toggled on, all toolbar buttons are hidden to give you more vertical space in the interface.

Tile/Stack Editor Actions

You can also tile or stack all open editors using the following actions from the toolbar or Window menu:

Tile Editors Horizontally: Splits the editing area into horizontal tiles, one for each open file.
Tile Editors Vertically: Splits the editing area into vertical tiles, one for each open file.
Stack Editors: The reverse of the Tile Editors Horizontally/Vertically actions. Stacks all open editors.
Synchronous Scrolling: Select this action to scroll through the tiled editors at the same time.

Note: When tiled, you can still drag and drop the editors, but note that they are docked in the same way as a window/view (instead of just tabs). You are actually rearranging the editor windows, so drag the editor tab and drop it to one of the sides of an editor (left/right/top/bottom). While dragging, you will see the dark gray rectangle aligned to one of the sides of the editor, or around the entire editor window. If you drop it to one of the sides, it will dock to that side of the editor. If you drop it when the rectangle is around the entire window of the editor, it will get stacked on top of that editor. You can also grab one of the stacked editors and tile it to one of the sides.

Split Editor Actions

You can divide the editing area vertically and horizontally using the following actions available in the toolbar and Window menu:

Split Editor Horizontally - Splits the editor horizontally so that two editor panes are displayed with one on top of the other. This is useful for comparing and merging content between two documents.
Split Editor Vertically - Splits the editor vertically so that two editor panes are displayed side by side. This is useful for comparing and merging content between two documents.
Unsplit Editor - Removes a split action on the editing area.

To maximize or restore the editors, go to Window > Maximize Editing Area.

Switch, Move, or Hide Editor Tabs

Each file that has been opened has a tab at the top of the editing pane and there are several ways to switch between tabs or move them, and you can even hide the tabs to only show the currently open file.

Note: If multiple file tabs are left open when you close the application, upon startup, Oxygen XML Developer will not load the file content until you switch to the corresponding file tab. The tabs remain visible as a placeholders until the focus is switched to them. This helps to improve the application's startup time. If you want to disable this feature (meaning that the previously open files will all be re-loaded at startup), deselect the Load file content only when switching to its corresponding editor tab option in the Global preferences page.

Switching Editor Tabs

You can switch between editor tabs by using any of the following methods:

Mouse and Scroll Wheel

Of course, you can switch to a different editor tab by left-clicking the tab with your mouse, but when there are too many open tabs to fit on the screen, you can hover over the tab stripe and use the scroll wheel on your mouse to scroll to the left or right (same as using the two arrows on the far-right of the tab stripe).

Buttons on the Far-Right of the Tab Stripe ()

You can use the arrow buttons (

) on the right side of the tab stripe to scroll to the left or right and the

Show List button opens a pop-up window that displays all the open file tabs and allows you to select and switch to a specific open file.

Ctrl + Tab (Command + Tab on macOS) [NOTE: Ctrl + Page Down (Ctrl + Option + Right Arrow on macOS) does the same]

Switches to the next open tab in the order specified in the Order of switching between editor tabs option.

Ctrl + Shift + Tab (Command + Shift + Tab on macOS) [NOTE: Ctrl + Page Up (Ctrl + Option + Left Arrow on macOS) does the same]

Switches to the previous open tab in the order specified in the Order of switching between editor tabs option.

Window > Switch editor tab (Ctrl + F9 (Command + F9 on macOS))

This action opens a dialog box that allows you to switch to a particular editor tab by selecting it from a filterable list. This is especially helpful when you have a large amount of open file tabs and you want to switch to a certain tab this is not shown on the screen. It includes a search filter field and several options to help you find specific open file tabs.

The Switch Editor Tab dialog box contains the following options and features:

Search Filter: You can enter text in the filter field at the top of the dialog box to filter the list and search for specific open files. You can enter any number of terms, separated by space, and wildcards are allowed (for example, * to match any sequence of characters, or ? to match a single character). This field also has a history drop-down that allows you to select previously used search terms.
Match all terms: If this option is selected, only the files that match all of your search terms will be displayed. If you use a wildcard in the search filter, this option is automatically disabled.
Include file paths: If this option is selected, the search is expanded to include file paths, and also the paths are displayed in this dialog box.
Case sensitive: If this option is selected, the search operation will be case-sensitive.
List of Open File Tabs: All files that are currently open are displayed in the upper part of the main pane of the dialog box, followed by recently closed files. Files that have been modified but not yet saved are prefixed by an asterisk. To switch to a particular file tab, double-click the file or select it and click OK.

Moving Editor Tabs

You can move editor tabs by using any of the following methods:

Mouse Drag: You can use your mouse to drag editor tabs to a new location on the tab stripe.
Ctrl + Alt + Comma: Moves the current file tab one position to the left.
Ctrl + Alt + Period: Moves the current file tab one position to the right.

Hiding Editor Tabs

If you want to hide all the file tabs and only show the currently open file, select Hide editor tabs from the Window menu. This does not close the other tabs, just hides them. You can still navigate between tabs using keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl + Tab, Ctrl + Shift + Tab, Ctrl + F6, Ctrl + Shift + F6) or by selecting Next editor or Previous editor from the Window menu.

Resources

For more information about configuring the interface of Oxygen XML Developer, watch our video demonstration:

Tip: To get more ideas for more advanced customization possibilities, watch our Webinar: Working with DITA in Oxygen - Customizing the Editing Experience. It offers a visual demonstration of how to customize actions, document validation, content completion, new document templates, Author mode rendering, and more.