Strange output for XHTML?

[anderszvensson]

Hi,

I've previously only rendered HTML using DITA OT directly, but now I tried the HTML output using the transformation scenario in Oxygen. I was surprised to see that the output was not the same as when doing it directly in the OT:

1. Instead of the frameset output with the TOC in the left frame and the content in the right frame (at least in the recent versions of the toolkit), I only get a TOC and nothing else. Of course if I click the links the topics open up, but why is it like this and not like the toolkit?

2. The title of the TOC html file says "Eclipse content aggregated by a map". Why Eclipse? Shouldn't it be web or xhtml?

This makes me suspect there must be something wrong here... I have checked again and again that I'm actually using the XHTML transformation scenario, and not Eclipse, and I have even checked the command line created by the scenario in the debug window, and it says transtype xhtml there. So what is wrong?

Regards,

Anders

[anderszvensson]

Sorry, it was late when I wrote my question Forget about number 2, that was of course (for some reason) the title in the ditamap in the garage samples.

But I still wonder about question 1...

Regards,

Anders

[Radu]

Hi Anders,

AFAK this is standard DITA to XHTML behavior, if you want a frameset you have to copy a frameset file to the output directory.
Oxygen 12 comes with DITA OT 1.5.1. I don't know if DITA OT 1.5.2 changed this default behavior when transforming to XHTML.
Oxygen 12 also offers the Webhelp transformation which should be better than the DITA to XHTML transformation (+ search capabilities).

In my opinion the previously used external DITA OT used a modified version of the toolkit which generated the frameset.
In the Oxygen transformation scenario you can edit in the Parameters tab and change the dita.dir parameter to point to your custom DITA OT installation directory. In this way you can run the transformation from Oxygen using a different DITA OT.

Regards,
Radu

[anderszvensson]

Ok, I didn't realize that it was 1.5.1. So that's probably why it differs then. Yes, I think there was some copy instruction in the build script for the frameset files in the new version.

I know I can switch DITA OT with the parameters in Oxygen, and I usually do that. I did so now too, but the difference was still there. I'm guessing because switching the DITA OT doesn't switch the build file?

I agree that the Oxygen web help is usually a better choice, and I really like it. But for this particular case I would need to use the regular xhtml transformation. Also, to explain what I'm trying to do, I need to have the TOC in the same directory as the topic files. I.e. if there are subdirectories for the topic files in the output (concepts, tasks directories, e.g.) then the TOC needs to be copied into those directories too. And I also need the links in the TOC to be relative to files in the same directory since I want to copy it there. I have still not found the way to do this, but please if you know offhand how, I would appreciate it!

Regards,

Anders

[Radu]

Hi Anders,

Modifying the dita.dir parameter to point to another DITA OT installation also switches Oxygen completely to using the build files from the other installation.
If this does not work for you, maybe in the command line which you used to start the other DITA OT you had particular ANT parameters set to activate the frameset in the output directory.

I do not know a way to achieve the customization you want, maybe some post processing of the output which would copy the TOC to every topic directory and also modify links in it to correctly point to the locations.
I think this is a question which would be better answered on the DITA Users list:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/dita-users/

Regards,
Radu

[anderszvensson]

Right, yes some sort of post-processing is the only thing I've come up with so far as well, but I wanted to avoid that in case there already was some functionality in the OT or Oxygen that I had missed. But it seems that will have to be the way to go then.

Thanks,

Anders

[Radu]

Hi Anders,

Maybe this forum link will help:

http://www.oxygenxml.com/forum/post1003 ... set#p10035

Regards,
Radu