VideosDocBook Editing Support

Table of Contents
  • Introduction00:15
  • Document Editing02:12
  • Insert a Paragraph00:35
  • Add New Section00:17
  • Insert an Image01:41
  • Add a List00:53
  • Add an Internal Link01:19
  • Insert a Table01:25
  • Export to PDF00:38

Overview

Duration: 09:16
This demonstration covers the basics of editing DocBook documents in Author mode.

Transcript

00:00:08The purpose of this video demonstration is to show you some of the useful features that
00:00:12you will find in oXygen XML when editing DocBook documents in Author mode.
00:00:17Let's start by creating a new DocBook article from one of oXygen's predefined file templates.
00:00:23I can enter the word 'DocBook' in the text field at the top of this dialog box and it
00:00:28will filter the templates.
00:00:30I'm going to select the DocBook 5 Article template and I'll save it as "DocBookSample.xml".
00:00:40By default, the document is opened in the Author visual editing mode and it has some
00:00:45information already populated, based upon that particular template.
00:00:49I don't need some of these pre-populated elements, so I want to delete them.
00:00:54There are several ways to do this and it gives me an opportunity to start showing you some
00:00:58of oXygens's most helpful features.
00:01:01So, to delete some of these elements I don't want I can simply use the mouse to select
00:01:06them and use "Backspace" or "Delete" on the keyboard.
00:01:09Notice that oXygen's automatic validation mechanism now reports an error.
00:01:14This feature helps you to always keep your documents valid in real time.
00:01:18Now I'm going to put the cursor inside the empty 'street' element.
00:01:23Notice that oXygen includes a "Breadcrumb" at the top of the main editing panel that
00:01:27shows you the XML structure at your current location within the document.
00:01:31If you right-click an element on that breadcrumb, you are presented with a contextual menu and
00:01:36in my case I'll use this to delete the 'street' element.
00:01:40The "Outline" view is another helpful feature that helps you to see the document structure
00:01:44in a hierarchical tree.
00:01:46You can also right-click an element in this view to open the contextual menu ... and for
00:01:51my purposes, I'm going to delete the 'author' element along with its child elements.
00:01:56Notice that the Outline view is continuously synchronized with the main editing panel.
00:02:02Now let's start editing the document by adding text for the title of the Article and the
00:02:07first section.
00:02:08Next, lets add some styling to some content.
00:02:12I've decided that I want to bold the word "oXygen" and italicize the name of the "docbook
00:02:17dtd" and I can do this by simply using toolbar buttons.
00:02:21Notice that there is a group of toolbar buttons that are specifically designed for DocBook-related
00:02:26editing actions.
00:02:29Now, suppose that I want to insert a new paragraph.
00:02:33There are two simple methods for inserting XML structure in Author mode.
00:02:37I could once again use a toolbar button, or I can use the Content Completion Assistant
00:02:43that presents a list of proposals that may be inserted at the current location.
00:02:47To open the Content Completion Assistant, I simply press the Enter key.
00:02:52Notice that the first proposal in the list is "New para".
00:02:56That's because the Content Completion Assistant determined that it would be the most logical
00:03:00proposal at the current location within the document.
00:03:03Now I'm going to insert a new section, again using a toolbar action.
00:03:08This particular action is located in the "Section" drop-down menu.
00:03:15Let's demote this new section so that it's a subsection of the first section.
00:03:21Now I'm going to insert an image into that subsection.
00:03:24Again, there are several ways to do this.
00:03:27I can use a toolbar button, or I can simply drag the file from the "Project" view and
00:03:32drop it into the document at the location where I want it.
00:03:36Similarly, I can also use copy and paste actions and oXygen's "Smart Paste" feature will determine
00:03:42the appropriate structure and location to keep the document valid.
00:03:54Notice how oXygen saved me several steps by inserting the required child elements along
00:03:59with the parent element to make the DocBook structure valid.
00:04:02For the sake of how it will look in the output, I'll promote this "Images" section back to
00:04:07the way it was.
00:04:08Next, let's add another section.
00:04:12If I look at my current location in the "Breadcrumb", I see that the cursor is currently in the
00:04:16'imagedata' element and I need to navigate back to the appropriate level in the XML structure.
00:04:22I can do this by using the arrow keys and watching the "Breadcrumb" until it indicates
00:04:26that I've navigated back to the "article" element.
00:04:29This time, I'm going to insert the new section using the Content Completion Assistant and
00:04:34also show another helpful feature called a "Quick Fix".
00:04:38After I insert the element, notice that the automatic validation reports another error.
00:04:43If I click on the lightbulb in the left vertical stripe, I have some "Quick Fix" proposals
00:04:48to choose from.
00:04:50I'll select the one that will insert a "title" element ... and I'll insert a new paragraph
00:04:55... and now the document is valid again.
00:05:02In this new section, I'm going to add a variety of things to show you some other features.
00:05:06First, I'll insert a list and some list items.
00:05:09Of course, I can do this by simply using toolbar actions, but suppose the list items already
00:05:14existed in the document as paragraphs.
00:05:17I can easily convert these paragraphs to list items by selecting the paragraphs and then
00:05:22clicking the appropriate list item button on the toolbar.
00:05:26Next let's sort the list items.
00:05:28I select the list and click the "Sort" button on the toolbar.
00:05:32This opens a dialog box where you can choose some options for the sorting operation.
00:05:38Now suppose that I decide that the second list item should be its own list, as a child
00:05:42of the first list item.
00:05:45I can select that list item and use the "Tab" key on the keyboard as a shortcut to demote it.
00:05:50Similarly, "Shift + Tab" promotes it.
00:05:54Next, I want to insert a cross reference that links to a section at the beginning of the document.
00:06:00However, first I need to assign an ID to the section that I want the link to reference.
00:06:06There are several ways to do this.
00:06:08First, I can select the element, right-click anywhere in the main editing pane and select
00:06:14"Generate IDs".
00:06:16This generates a random ID for the currently selected element.
00:06:20Alternatively, I can select the element and use the "Attributes" view to assign an ID.
00:06:25You can also use the Alt + Enter keyboard shortcut to open an in-place attributes editor
00:06:31and assign it there.
00:06:35Now that the section has an ID, let's create the link.
00:06:38I highlight the text where I want the link and click the "Link" drop-down menu from the toolbar.
00:06:44Notice that there are several different types of links to choose from in this drop-down
00:06:48menu, but for my purposes I want to select "Cross Reference (link)".
00:06:54This opens a dialog box where I select the ID that I just assigned and after clicking
00:06:59"OK" the link is created and notice that there is now a small link icon to the left of the
00:07:04linked text.
00:07:06I can click that link icon to test the cross reference and oXygen will navigate to that reference.
00:07:14Now I'll insert a table into the document.
00:07:19I navigate to the end of the section and click the "Insert Table" button on the toolbar.
00:07:24This opens a dialog box that allows you to configure various options for the new table.
00:07:29I'll just choose to create a simple 4 by 4 CALS table and then I'll customize it after it's inserted.
00:07:36To customize the table, you can use actions that are available on the toolbar and in the
00:07:41contextual menu, and if you click the "colspecs" option above the table, it expands a section
00:07:47where you can customize some column options, such as the width and alignment.
00:07:53Suppose that I want the first two header cells to be merged to accommodate a single phrase
00:07:57that's centered.
00:07:59I select the cells and use the "Join" action on the toolbar to merge them.
00:08:03Then I enter the phrase, and to change the alignment, I'll select "Table Properties"
00:08:07from the contextual menu and in the resulting dialog box, I'll change the horizontal alignment to "center".
00:08:15Now I'll configure the table in various ways using the table editing actions and the options
00:08:20in "Table Properties".
00:08:22Also, notice that you can hover outside the table to select entire rows or columns.
00:08:28Let's select a row and remove the row separator.
00:08:39Once the document is complete, it can be easily exported to various output formats,
00:08:44such as WebHelp, PDF, or HTML,
00:08:47by using one of the built-in transformation scenarios.
00:08:51For the purposes of this video, I'll use a DocBook PDF transformation, and after I click
00:08:57"Apply", oXygen processes the transformation and the result is automatically opened in
00:09:01my system's default PDF viewer.
00:09:09This concludes our demonstration, and as always, thanks for watching.

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