• 2025

    26.1.0
    Version 26.1.0 - March 25, 2024

  • 2024

    26.0.0
    Version 26.0.0 - October 11, 2023
  • 25.1.0
    Version 25.1.0 - March 16, 2023

  • 2023

    25.0.0
    Version 25.0.0 - October 13, 2022
  • 24.1.0
    Version 24.1.0 - March 7, 2022

  • 2022

    24.0.0
    Version 24.0.0 - October 18, 2021
  • 23.1.1
    Version 23.1.1 - July 12, 2021
  • 23.1.0
    Version 23.1.0 - March 4, 2021

  • 2021

    23.0.0
    Version 23.0.0 - November 19, 2020
  • 22.1.0
    Version 22.1.0 - May 19, 2020
  • 22.0.0
    Version 22.0.0 - February 12, 2020

  • 2020

    21.1.1
    Version 21.1.1 - October 24, 2019
  • 21.1.0
    Version 21.1.0 - May 23, 2019
  • 21.0.0
    Version 21.0.0 - February 22, 2019

  • 2019

    20.1.0
    Version 20.1.0 - June 15, 2018
  • 20.0.0
    Version 20.0.0 - March 16, 2018

  • 2018

  • 19.0.0
    Version 19.1.0 - September 29, 2017
    Version 19.0.0 - April 5, 2017

  • 2017

  • 18.0.0
    Version 18.1.0 - October 18, 2016
    Version 18.0.1 - August 9, 2016
    Version 18.0.0 - April 21, 2016
    Version 18.0 - April 21, 2016
  • 18.0
    Version 18.1.0 - October 18, 2016
    Version 18.0.1 - August 9, 2016
    Version 18.0.0 - April 21, 2016
    Version 18.0 - April 21, 2016

What's New in Oxygen XML Web Author 26.0.0

October 11, 2023

Related version: 26.1.0    

One of the most exciting new features is the preview of the new Oxygen AI Positron Assistant plugin that provides a powerful tool to help writers use AI-generated content, available now on the Web Author demo server and soon to be available for Web Author on-premise installations. The plugin contributes a side pane that offers a variety of AI-powered actions with the goal of improving your productivity. Actions are available to provide helpful hints for the next writing steps, enhance the readability of existing content, correct grammar errors, generate index terms, translate content, create marketing-related material, or even restructure parts of a document.

The user interface also received several improvements, with some convenience features added for file comparisons and for DITA editing. There are also various security enhancements, customization possibilities, as well as component updates.

Artificial Intelligence

AI Positron Assistant Side View

Web Author now features a new AI Positron Assistant side-view that provides you with various ways to use ChatGPT while editing or reviewing content. This tool offers a comprehensive interface for AI actions and options, empowering you to leverage the full capabilities of AI technology. It allows you to receive helpful hints for your next writing steps, enhance the readability of your content, correct grammar errors, generate index terms, translate content, create marketing-related material, or even restructure your entire document.

The AI Positron Assistant side-view is currently accessible on our online demo website and will soon be made available as a plugin for on-premise installations.

AI Positron Assistant Side View

User Interface Improvements

Selection Improvements for Inserting Special Characters

When using the Insert Special Characters action, you will find a dialog box with a list of recently used characters. You can now hover over each recently used character to view its name and corresponding hex code, making it even easier to determine the correct character to select. This is especially helpful for characters that are difficult to see visually (such as whitespace characters).
Selection Improvements for Inserting Special Characters

Editing Mermaid Diagrams

A free plugin is now available to edit Mermaid diagrams and charts embedded in your XML documents. Mermaid renders Markdown-inspired text definitions for dynamically creating and modifying diagrams. For details about how to install the plugin, see Web Author User Manual: Mermaid Plugin.

Chinese Translations for Static Text

Static text labels that are presented in the visual editor (such as the labels for notes: Tip, Warning, Important, etc.) are translated into Chinese if the xml:lang attribute is set to zh-CN in the topic's root element. Previously, Chinese translations were not supported for the static text. With this update, users can now enjoy a fully localized experience, allowing for easier understanding and navigation of the visual editor.

Tracked Changes are More Visible When Renaming Elements

When renaming an XML element in the visual editor with change tracking enabled, the change is now tracked as an element deletion followed by the newly renamed element insertion. This enhancement provides a more accurate representation of the changes made during the renaming process.
Tracked Changes are More Visible When Renaming Elements

File Comparison/Merge

Merge Changes When Comparing Document With Another File

When using the Compare With Another File action to open a comparison of the current file with another selected file, the file is no longer always opened as read-only, which means that you now have the ability to merge changes from the other file. This also means that you can merge changes from other Git branches.
Merge Changes When Comparing Document With Another File

Compare Revisions Directly from Version History Dialog Box

The Version History dialog box for CMIS connections can now be used to show the differences between two versions (and to even merge the changes). This makes it easier to trigger comparisons of specific revisions directly from the Version History dialog box, without needing to trigger the comparison using other actions.
Compare Revisions Directly from Version History Dialog Box

Concurrent Editing

Load Balancing for Shared Editing Session

The Shared Editing Session feature, which allows multiple users to see each other's changes in real-time, now works with a Web Author deployment that uses load balancing across two servers. This means that the workload is distributed across multiple servers, enabling a larger number of users to collaborate simultaneously compared to a single server with similar specifications.

DITA

Edit Profiling Attributes

The contextual menu now includes a new action called Edit Profiling Attributes. This action allows you to modify the values of profiling attributes for the current DITA XML element. You can configure the proposed attribute values using a subject scheme map referenced in the DITA map, or by exporting them from the Attributes and Condition Sets preferences page in the Oxygen desktop version (these exported values can then be used as imposed options in the Web Author server).

Additionally, the Edit Profiling Attributes dialog box can be accessed by clicking the Edit Profiling Attributes button located at the end of the profiling attributes label for each element that contains profiling attributes. You can also access the dialog box by using the Edit Profiling Attributes button in the Attributes side panel (which appears when editing the value for a profiling attribute).

Edit Profiling Attributes

Inserting Topic References Using Content Completion is Easier

It is now much easier to insert topic references from the content completion assistant. When selecting the Topic Reference proposal from the content completion assistant to insert a reference to an existing topic, a dialog box will appear. From this dialog box, you can choose the target file, define keys, add attributes, configure profiling, and perform other actions. Similarly, if you select the Topic Reference (New Topic) proposal, a dialog box will open where you can choose a template to create a new DITA topic. This will create the new topic and insert a reference to it in the map.
Inserting Topic References Using Content Completion is Easier

Security

New Security Options in the Administration Page

Some new security options were added in the Administration Page. The Use the "Secure" attribute for the session cookie option can be selected to instruct the application to add the "Secure" cookie attribute on the session cookie (this means that the browser will only send the session cookie over HTTPS). The Use HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) option can be selected to set the Strict-Transport-Security header (that makes browsers access the application's domain and subdomains using only HTTPS protocol).

Embedded Firewall Now Blocks Outgoing HTTP Connections By Default

The default configuration of the embedded Firewall is set to block any HTTP connection made by Web Author. You can adjust the security setting from the Administration Page to allow connections to certain hosts to ensure your usage scenarios are not impacted.

Bearer Authentication Support in the REST Plugin

The Web Author REST API plugin, which integrates Web Author with a custom file storage system that implements a simple REST API, now can use Bearer Authentication for improved security.

New API to Refresh the Session Cookie after Login

CMS connector plugins have now access to a new API (ro.sync.ecss.extensions.api.webapp.SessionStore.refreshSessionCookie) that can be used to refresh the session cookie when users login to the CMS. This helps to protect against session fixation attacks.

Customization and Integration

Control the Availability of the Edit Profiling Attributes Action

A new WEBAPP_ALLOW_EDIT_PROFILING_ATTRIBUTES option can be used to control whether or not the Edit Profiling Attributes action is available in the interface. When set to auto (the default state), the action is shown for DITA topics and maps. When set to true, the action is always shown. When set to false, the action is always hidden.

Security Added for Servlet Plugin Extension

The ro.sync.ecss.extensions.api.webapp.plugin.WebappServletPluginExtension plugin extension was deprecated and replaced by ro.sync.ecss.extensions.api.webapp.plugin.ServletPluginExtension. This new extension protects against CSRF attacks by blocking non-GET requests that do not have the "X-Requested-With" header set.

Add or Remove Editor Stripes

The new sync.api.Workspace.createEditorStripe JavaScript API can be used to add a stripe above or below the editor. Also, the new sync.api.Workspace.removeEditorStripe API can be used to remove an editor stripe.

Define Merge Rules in Content Completion Configurations

By default, when defining rules in a content completion configuration file (cc_config.xml), if multiple rules match a certain element context, then only one is applied. However, by setting the merge="true" attribute on the rules allows the application to apply multiple rules that match a single element context.

Component Updates

Java 17

Web Author now requires a minimum version of Java Virtual Machine 17 to run.

TLS 1.3

Web Author now uses TLS 1.3 when used with a compatible web browser.

Apache Shiro 1.12

Updated the Apache Shiro library to version 1.12.

Apache Tomcat

Updated Apache Tomcat to version 9.0.75.

Deprecated WebDAV Server plugin

The WebDAV Server plugin has been marked as deprecated and is disabled by default.

Products

Features

Shop

Resources

Support

Company

© 2002-2024 SyncRO Soft SRL. All rights reserved.

This website was created & generated with <oXygen/>®XML Editor