[oXygen-user] DITA Feature Request -- Insert href to files

[Seraphim Larsen]

It would be nice to have a better method for inserting the hrefs for <xref>,
<link>, <conref>, and <image>.

As far as I can tell, the current feature set allows you to insert these
elements, but then you need to hand-code the href.

Would be nice to have a dialog box that allows you to select the target file
-- for example, something like the way you can currently insert conrefs.

Even nicer, it would be great to be able to drag-and-drop from the Project
pane.  For example, drag a topic file, and drop into an open DITA file (in
Text or Author view), and an xref is inserted.   Ctrl-drag, and a Related
Link is inserted.   Drag a graphic, and an <image> element is inserted, with
the href already correctly defined.

To get an xref to a particular element, it would be nice to have a feature
something like this:

   - Select the target element
   - Select menu item "Create xref to target element", which results in the
   following:
      - If the selected element has no id attribute, an id attribute is
      created, or a dialog box opens, telling the user to specify the
id attribute
      - The clipboard is then populated with the <xref> element with the
      href already correctly defined.
      - An optional dialog box could appear, telling the user that the xref
      has been formed and is on the clipboard
   - You then go to the place where you want to put the xref, and just paste
   it in.
   - Oxygen should adjust the syntax of the href, depending on where the
      user pastes it in.  This would not just be a simple copy-paste, but would
      require some additional intelligence from Oxygen:
      - If the xref is pointing to content in the same file, the following
         syntax is used (as per the DITA Language
Spec<http://docs.oasis-open.org/dita/v1.1/OS/langspec/langref/xref.html#xref__attrs>
         ):
              href="#topicID"
              href="#topicID/elemID
         - If the xref target is in a different file:
              href="filename.dita#topicID"
              href="fname.dita#topicID/elemID"

It would be nice to have similar copy/paste functionality for conrefs.
Much easier than navigating through a dialog box.


Thanks,

Seraphim



On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 11:16 PM, Radu Coravu <> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> We will study implementing this request for a future version.
>
> Regards,
> Radu
>
> --
> Radu Coravu <oXygen/> XML Editor, Schema Editor and XSLT Editor/Debugger
> http://www.oxygenxml.com
>
>
> Eliot Kimber wrote:
>
>> On 6/2/08 3:23 PM, "Seraphim Larsen" <> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> It would also be nice if the dialog box for inserting topicrefs would
>>> stay
>>> open after inserting each ref.  That way you can keep inserting refs till
>>> you're done, rather than needing to open the dialog box every single time
>>> you add a new ref.  Serna has this behavior and it's much easier to work
>>> with, in my opinion.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> I agree--it's quite nice for organizing a set of existing topics into a
>> new
>> navigation hierarchy.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Eliot
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
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