Basic--VERY basic questions

[SL]

I'm a rank beginner and utterly lost. When I try to create a new XML document and select a System ID from the <oXygen/>/DTD/TEI folder, nothing appears in the Document Root blank. Unless I choose teixlite.dtd. However, using that, I don't seem to have the tag set I need. I've read and read to no avail. Where might I find instructions geared to someone who knows absolutely nothing? Something like <oXygen/> for Dummies would do it!

Also, I downloaded v2.0.4 with JAVA. Yet my control panel says my Java version is 1.31. Is that right, or have I messed that up as well? If it matters, I'm running Win98SE.

I apologize for such elementary questions, but I have a rather urgent need to learn this program and just haven't been able to find answers to the basics.

Sign me, clueless!

[george]

Hi,

TEI XML documents cannot use the TEI DTDs as they are but they need to do some customisation in the internal DTD subset. This is why oXygen is not able to parse the DTD you select and give you a list of root tags.

You can use the "New from templates" action and select one of the document types avaiable there (TEI P4, TEI Lite, TEI Master, TEI Master msDescription, TEI simple authoring). If these do not cover your needs then I guess you should look into TEI documentation for the type of document you are trying to create. Also you might want to take a look at the README file from the oXygen tei directory. I recommend you to use the templates with the DTDs on the Web and set up the TEI XML Catalog through oXygen preferences. The catalog is named catalog.xml and is located in the tei/dtd directory.

Best Regards,
George

[sorin_ristache]

Regarding the Java version problem with the installer including a Java Virtual Machine, you should have no problems if you leave the default selection in the "Choose Java Virtual Machine" panel of the installation process, that is install the Java virtual machine that comes with the installer. A screenshot:



After installation you can check the version of the Java virtual machine used by oXygen in the About dialog box: the value of "java.version" should be "1.4.2" and the value of "lax.nl.current.vm" should be "jre\bin\java.exe". This will not affect other Java aplications on your computer.

[seanwhe]

... but I have a rather urgent need to learn this program and just haven't been able to find answers to the basics.

I don't think the problem is learning the program. The Oxygen USer Manual explains that. I think that you should focus on learning the fundamentals of TEI (http://www.tei-c.org) if you want to use TEI. The Tuts are available at http://www.tei-c.org/Tutorials/index.html (If you want Docbook then see http://www.docbook.org).

Don't be shy to ask for more help. I'm especially interested to understand the application level problems that users will have with Oxygen. Note I seperate the XML technologies from the Java application.