[oXygen-sdk] [Ann] oXygen XML Editor 18.1 beta

[Oxygen XML Editor Support (Adrian Buza)]

Dear oXygen users,

We are happy to announce that version 18.1 of oXygen XML Editor is close 
to being released.
We have decided to offer a beta version prior to the final release to 
give you the opportunity to send us your feedback on the new features.

Below, please see information about:
* Downloading - oXygen 18.1 beta downloading links and notes
* Licensing - a trial license key for testing
* What's new - a summary of the most important new features in version 18.1


= Downloading =
Editor: https://www.oxygenxml.com/beta18_1/oxygenxml_editor.html

Important Notes:
- This build is meant for testing and evaluation purposes only. Do not 
use it for production work.
- You should install this beta version in a different directory than 
your current Oxygen installation. For Windows, we also recommend that 
you disable file associations during the installation to preserve your 
current Oxygen file associations with the various XML file types.
- You may encounter some bugs in this beta version. If you find one, 
it'll be greatly appreciated if you could report it to us here:
https://www.oxygenxml.com/techSupport.html
- This beta version comes with no warranty. Please use it at your own 
risk. It is therefore up to you to take adequate precaution against 
possible damages resulting from the use of this beta software.


= Licensing =
If you already have a license key for Oxygen XML Editor with an active 
SMP, it will also work for this beta version. If you don't have one, a 
registration dialog box will open and you can use the following trial 
license key:

------START-LICENSE-KEY------

Registration_Name=Beta 18.1

Company=

Category=Enterprise

Component=XML-Editor, XSLT-Debugger, Saxon-SA

Version=18

Number_of_Licenses=1

Date=09-15-2016

Trial=31

SGN=MCwCFDT7yh6jdxEXW+hBKLVE8gAZlZ5RAhQHasbikf65HICPaXFZ9eX5Nd828w\=\=

-------END-LICENSE-KEY-------


= What's new in Oxygen XML Editor 18.1 =
For the full list of new features and changes in v18.1, please see:
https://www.oxygenxml.com/whatisnew18.1.html


Visual XML Editing
New Form Controls for Rendering and Playing Video and Audio Media
Three powerful new form controls were added that allow you to render and 
play media in Author mode. The oxy_video form control can be used to 
play video files, the oxy_browser form control can be used to render an 
HTML page or SVG file, and the oxy_audio form control can play audio clips.

Implement Custom "Heavy" Form Controls
oXygen now provides support for Heavy form controls. This new type of 
form control allows you to play video and audio resources, and render 
HTML or SVG resources. You can also implement your own custom form 
controls based on the new Heavy architecture.

Convert Paragraphs to List Items and Change List Item Type
When editing DITA, DocBook, XHTML, or TEI documents, you can easily 
convert selected paragraphs to list items by using the various Insert 
List Item actions on the toolbar. You can also change selected list 
items to another type (for example, change an unordered list to an 
ordered list).

Smart Paste Handles Internal Links in Office Documents
The Smart Paste feature has been improved to preserve links to other 
parts of the same document, when pasting content from Office documents 
into Author mode. Links are converted to cross references for the 
particular document type that you are working with.

Improvements to Paste Strategies in Tables
The strategies for the behavior of the paste mechanism when pasting 
content in table cells has been improved. Now, copied cells are pasted 
while preserving their initial order and spacing.


DITA
Support for Video and Audio Media Objects
oXygen now includes actions to easily insert video or audio content 
within DITA topics. The oXygen visual editing Author mode will not only 
display the media content, but also allow you to play it in-place. On 
the publishing side, oXygen comes with a DITA-OT plugin that will enable 
the multimedia content to appear in HTML and PDF output.

Embed Video and Audio Media in DITA to WebHelp Output
You can insert references to video and audio media resources (such as 
YouTube videos) in your DITA topics and publish them to WebHelp output. 
The embedded video and audio objects can be played directly in all 
HTML5-based outputs, including WebHelp systems.

Improve Speed for Computing Topic Titles
The amount of time it takes to compute topic titles in the DITA Maps 
Manager view was reduced as oXygen accesses multiple topics in the same 
time to extract the title information.

New Action for Duplicating Topics
There is now a new contextual menu action in the DITA Maps Manager view 
called Duplicate that creates a copy of the selected topic and insert it 
as a sibling. It is helpful for quickly creating a new DITA topics that 
is similar to an existing topic.

Lightweight DITA Improvements
The Lightweight DITA DTDs were updated to the latest version. Also, you 
can now use the new Insert Media action to insert references to video or 
audio resources when editing Lightweight DITA documents.

Tracked Changes and Comments Can Be Displayed in PDF Output
You now have the ability to display tracked changes and comments in DITA 
to PDF output. This can be done by simply setting a parameter in the 
transformation scenario.

Validate and Check for Completeness Command Line Tool
A new command line tool was added that executes a Validate and Check for 
Completeness operation on a specified DITA map. The results are 
displayed in the command console (for example, whether or not the 
validation was successful, the number of errors or warnings, or you can 
even specify to display the entire report). The tool requires an oXygen 
Scripting license.


Markdown Editor
New Markdown Editor
oXygen now includes a built-in Markdown editor that allows you to write 
and edit documents using Markdown syntax and converts it to HTML or 
DITA. The specialized multi-pane editor includes a preview panel to help 
you visualize the final output. The editor includes a variety of helpful 
actions, automatic validation, syntax highlighting to make it easier to 
read and write, and specialized syntax rules that combine popular 
features from several specifications.

Create Markdown Documents Directly from DITA Maps Manager
The Markdown editing support includes unique features that allow you to 
create Markdown documents directly in DITA maps (from the DITA Maps 
Manager) and to convert Markdown documents to DITA topics.


Content Completion
Improved Precision for Content Completion
oXygen allows you to set a configuration file to control the content 
completion proposals for elements presented in the Content Completion 
Assistant. Now, you can identify more precisely the elements you want to 
control, by being able to check attributes and attribute values on those 
elements.

Improved Content Completion for XPath and XQuery
The Content Completion Assistant for XPath and XQuery was updated to 
take into account the latest additions in XPath 3.0 and XQuery 3.0. For 
example, new functions are now offered though content completion, such 
as empty-sequence, document-node, item, comment, namespace-node, and 
processing-instruction - just to name a few.


File Comparison Tool
More Accurate Second Level Comparisons on XML Nodes
When using the XML Fast and XML Accurate algorithms for two-way or 
three-way comparisons, the second level comparison is now processed 
using a syntax-aware comparison that splits the files or fragments into 
sequences of tokens and computes the differences between them. This 
results in a more accurate second level comparison.

Improvements to the Format and Indent Action
The Format and Indent action in the File Comparison tool now works on 
more file types. You can now use the action on the following types of 
files: XQuery, CSS, JavaScript, JSON, RNC, XSD, RNG, NVDL, XML, ANT, 
DITAMap, WSDL, SVG, Schematron, XProc, XSL, and HTML.


As usual, oXygen also added many new API and component updates for this 
release.

Please let us know if you encounter any problems with this beta build. 
All feedback is welcome!

Best regards,
Adrian

Adrian Buza
oXygen XML Editor and Author Support

Tel: +1-650-352-1250 ext.2020
Fax: +40-251-461482
support at oxygenxml.com