What's New in Oxygen XML Author 27.1
March 24, 2025
Related version: 27.0
Oxygen XML Author version 27.1 is an incremental release of the industry-leading bundle of tools for content authors, collaborators, and publishers.
In version 27.1, the AI Positron Assistant has been enhanced to include new AI-driven actions for validation fixes, MathML generation, and automatic code annotations.
Enhancements to the Git Client add-on ensure a smoother user experience. Highlighted among the various improvements are the new Cherry-pick and Merge actions in the Git History view that make it easier to incorporate changes from selected commits.
For DITA publishing, the built-in publishing engine now integrates DITA-OT 4.3.0 to deliver more robust and efficient output.
This release also offers new APIs, refreshed components, security enhancements, and numerous bug fixes to refine the overall user experience.
There are changes in:
DITA Publishing
DITA-OT 4.3
The publishing engine was updated to integrate DITA-OT 4.3.0.
Control Logging
For DITA to PDF (based on HTML5 and CSS) transformations, it is now possible to
control the Oxygen PDF Chemistry console logging by using a custom
logback.xml configuration file along with the
chemistry.log.file transformation parameter. This is helpful if you
want to hide the INFO messages or write the logs into a separate file.Specify Viewers in Zendesk Transformations
In the Zendesk Help Center transformation scenario, you can
now specify a user segment that can view published articles, giving you greater control
over access to your content.
AI Positron Assistant
Preview All AI-Proposed Changes to Files
You now have the ability to preview all the changes in the documents that the
AI proposes to create or update while processing particular actions (e.g. Split
Topic or Create Topics). You are no longer required to confirm
that you want to overwrite files. Instead, you can preview the proposed changes in all
files and choose how to proceed in each instance. This helps to ensure control over
AI-proposed modifications.
Notification for Unchanged Content
When an AI action processes content but does not result in any changes, you are now informed, eliminating the need for unnecessary previews or visual inspection. This improvement saves time and ensures a smoother workflow.
Fix Validation Problems
The Intelligent Agents category now includes a new Fix
Validation Problems action. This action validates the current document and
suggests fixes for all identified issues, streamlining both the validation process and the
resolution of validation problems, ensuring high-quality content.
AI-based MathML Generation
The new Formula/Equation action (located in the Content Generation category) leverages AI to generate MathML formulas based on your descriptions. This feature simplifies the creation of complex mathematical representations and enhances technical documentation workflows.
AI-based Code Annotations
The new Annotate Code AI action (located in the
Development category) can be used to generate XML comments within the
code found in the current selection, at the cursor location, or in the whole document. The
generated annotations explain key concepts of the code. This action is available for XSLT,
Schematron, and XSD documents.
Resolve Comments from Contextual Menu
Invoking the Resolve Comments AI action is now much more
efficient as it now appears directly in the contextual menu when you right-click a comment
callout box in the editor or in the Review view. The action changes the selected content
based on the suggestions within comments and then removes the comments.
New AI Callback Functions to Enable Dynamic Workflows
The plugin now includes several new AI callback functions, which are
specialized mechanisms enabling the AI to dynamically invoke external processing and use
the results in generating its response. These new functions can be used to invoke another
AI action, to find all the available AI actions, and to validate a document, thus
empowering users to create complex, dynamic workflows as part of a custom AI action.
invoke_ai_action- This callback function invokes an AI action that enables the delegation of processing to other AI actions, thus you can use a divide-et-impera approach to simplify and optimize the AI action processing.retrieve_all_ai_actions- Instead of specifying a predefined set of AI actions that can be invoked, you can use this callback function that returns all the defined actions. This allows the AI to discover all the available AI actions and invoke them dynamically as needed.validate_document_content- When processing or generating content, an AI action can now use this callback function that validates a document, ensuring that the generated content is valid. In case of errors, it offers the opportunity to automatically correct the detected problems.
Invoke Positron Actions from XPath
A new XPath function (ai:invoke-action) has been introduced,
enabling you to seamlessly invoke an AI Positron action from any XPath context (such as
XSLT, XQuery, Schematron, etc.) by providing the action ID, contextual text, and the
content to be processed.
Multi-agent Architecture for Create Topics
The Create Topics action has been restructured using a
multi-agent architecture and now leverages the
invoke_ai_action()
function. These improvements ensure better adherence to system instructions and more
consistent execution. Export and Import Chat Sessions
It is now possible to export a conversation with the AI to a JSON file using
the new Export Chat action that appears in the Actions
menu. You can also import a conversation from a JSON file using the new Import
Chat action. This feature is especially helpful for debugging purposes or to
resume an exported conversation with the AI. For example, an exported conversation could
be sent to the developer of a custom action to help them investigate issues that were
encountered and then you could import the previous conversation once you are ready to
resume.
Disable/Enable All AI Features for a Specific Project
An option was added in the Preferences page for you to disable (or enable) all
the AI features at project level (or globally for all projects). This allows you to
control which projects have AI features available.
Updated Default Model
For the SaaS distribution and for the OpenAI connector in the Enterprise
distribution, the default AI model has been updated to
gpt-4o-2024-11-20,
the latest gpt-4o snapshot from OpenAI.XProc
Run AI-Enabled XSLT Stylesheets from XProc
The XProc Calabash engine in Oxygen now supports running XSLT stylesheets that
contain AI functions contributed by the Oxygen AI Positron Assistant. For a list of the
supported AI functions, see Oxygen AI Positron Assistant: Function Calls.
Improved XProc Error Messaging
All error messages reported by Saxon during XProc transformations are now
presented to help with troubleshooting efforts by providing detailed error messages that
include the location and the cause of the error.
XProc Version 3.1 Schemas
XProc 3.1 schemas were added to offer support for content completion and
validation in XProc 3.1 files.
Specify XProc Version in New Document Wizard
When creating an XProc script from the new document wizard, you now have the
option to customize the template and specify the version (1.0, 3.0, or 3.1) for the new
XProc document.
Quick Fixes
More Ways to Access Quick Fix Proposals
Now, quick fix suggestions for validation issues are also available in the
contextual menu of the status bar at the bottom of the editor where the description of the
current validation issue is displayed, providing even more convenient ways to quickly
solve validation issues while editing XML documents.
Add-ons
Oxygen offers a range of add-ons that can be utilized to expand its
functionality.
Git Client Improvements
Various improvements were made to the Git Client add-on:
- The new Cherry-pick action (available in the Git History view) applies the changes from the selected commit to the current branch.
- The Merge action is now available in the Git History view. You can use this action to merge an entire branch, or to integrate all changes from a selected commit and any of its ancestors that are not already in the current branch.
- The Git History side-view can now be linked to the active editor using the Link with Editor option. Selecting an editor for a file within the same repository will automatically display that file's history.
- It is now possible to sign commits using SSH keys.
- For Git resources, the contextual menu in the DITA Maps Manager now includes a Git submenu with two actions. The Show history action displays the history of the selected resource within the DITA Maps Manager. The Show blame action reveals who made the last modification on each line of a file and in which commit.
- Actions to create a repository in the project folder were added in the contextual menu of the Project side-view (look for Create repository here) and the Git main menu (see Create repository in project).
- The JGit component was updated to version 7.1.0.
- Other minor improvements and various bug fixes were implemented.
Miscellaneous
Speed Improvement for Format and Indent Files
The Format and Indent Files action is now done in parallel,
decreasing the time it takes to format and indent lots of files at once.
Component Updates
Eclipse 4.35
The Eclipse plugin was updated to fully support Eclipse version
4.35.
EPUBCheck 5.2.1
Updated the EPUBCheck tool used to validate EPUB resources to version
5.2.1.
JSON-Java 20250107
Updated the JSON-Java (org.json) package to version 20250107.
OpenJDK 17.0.14
The version of OpenJDK that is bundled with the installation kits for providing
the Java Runtime Environment was updated to version 17.0.14 from Eclipse Adoptium.
TEI Schemas 4.9.0
Updated the bundled TEI schemas to version 4.9.0.
TEI Stylesheets 7.58.0
Updated the bundled TEI XSLT stylesheets to version 7.58.0.
Bootstrap 5.3.3
Oxygen WebHelp Responsive output now uses Bootstrap 5.3.3 to render the
output.
Deprecated/Removed Components
Validation and Transformation Engines
The following validation and transformation engines were marked as deprecated
and will be removed in a future version:
- msxsl (MSXML3.0, MSXML4.0 transformers)
- nxslt (.NET 1.0 transformer)
- nxslt2 (.NET 2.0 transformer)
- dotnetValidator (MSXML.NET validator)
- msValidator (MSXML4.0 validator)
API Additions
Custom Help for Plugin Preferences Page
The new
OptionPagePluginExtension.getHelpPageURL() API method
was added, allowing a plugin-contributed preferences page to provide its own help page
URL.Create a Link Label
The new
OxygenUIComponentsFactory.createLinkLabel(String,
ActionListener) API can be used to create a link label (a clickable label that
looks and acts like a link).Convert Visual Offset to Line/Column Information
The new
AuthorDocumentProvider.getLineColumnMapping API method
allows an offset in the Author visual editor to be converted to line/column information in
the serialized XML document.