Ditaval Flagging Request

[JamesL]

For our internal documentation, we use the action="flag" with a color specified a lot. Even though we have external ditaval files, it would be nice if the Profiling set in Oxygen supported the flagging/color options also. This would make rendering via Oxygen much simpler for us (as we maintain many different profiles).

[JamesL]

Meant to also add that I am using 13.1.

[sorin_ristache]

Hello,

By default the DITA profiling attributes are the ones recommended in the DITA 1.1 specification: audience, platform, product, otherprops. You can configure in Oxygen as profiling attribute any other attribute with any possible values (for example the action attribute with the possible values flag1, flag2, etc) to this set by going to menu Options -> Preferences -> Editor -> Edit modes -> Author -> Profiling/Conditional Text. There is a form of flagging in Author mode: mark each profile with a border that surrounds exactly the content of that profile and that specifies also the profile name on a colored background. You can switch this flagging on and off in Author mode with the popup menu that is triggered by the Profiling/Conditional Text button from the toolbar of the DITA Maps Manager view.


Regards,
Sorin

[JamesL]

My request was more for passing the action="flag" and color="..." on through to the rendering stage.

While we use a CMS to do our production renderings, I have been modifying the local Oxygen DITA-OT to give our authors a quick one-page rendering preview.

[sorin_ristache]

What do you mean by passing to the rendering stage? Do you want to see different colors in Author editing mode for the content surrounded in elements with different values of the action and color attributes? Is that the preview that you want? Or do you want to see the colors rendered in a partial output format? Please give a short example.


Regards,
Sorin

[JamesL]

I mean passing it to the Transformation Scenarios, when the "Use current conditioning profile" option is selected for filtering. Right now to work around this, I need to use the "Use DITAVAL file" option and point to an external ditaval file.

The reason I am using the transform scenario is because we have developed a specialized DTD, and rendering it in a very distinct and compact way. While we have modified the CSS driving the Author editing mode, it is limited in how compact we can actually display the information.

[sorin_ristache]

Now I understand. You are right, the flag action and the value of color cannot be set in an Oxygen profiling set. We will consider adding them to a profiling set and also passing them to the transformation scenario when the option Use current profiling condition set is selected in the transformation dialog box. I filed an enhancement request in our system.


Thank you,
Sorin

[kirkilj]

Adding my whole-hearted support for this feature.

[sorin_ristache]

Hi kirkilj,

We will consider adding this improvement for flagging actions and setting content colors (background and foreground colors) in these actions. I cannot tell you a precise future version number for this improvement but we have it on our to-do list.


Thank you for your request,
Sorin

[Radu]

Hi,

Just to update this forum thread, Oxygen 16.0 has support for showing profiling colors and styles:

http://www.oxygenxml.com/demo/Colors_an ... ntent.html

Regards,
Radu

[chrizzbee]

hi radu

may i ask how far flagging of content in the output (pdf!!) has progressed? will there be options to include all this nice colour styling for the editor also in transformations? it would be very handy to have in the conditional profiling sets also the options to flag content and not just to include.

[Radu]

Hi,

The default DITA Map to PDF processing will ignore the colors and styles you have set for profiling attributes inside Oxygen.
If you need this for review one possible workaround would be to open the DITA Map in the main editor area with resolved topics (there is a toolbar button for this in the DITA Maps Manager view) and use the File->Print functionality from inside the editor to print to a previously installed PDF printer like Win2PDF.
The PDF will not look identical to the final published one but you can use it for review.

Regards,
Radu

[chrizzbee]

hi radu

yes i know that and i am aware of this "workaround". but as sorin has quoted:

Hi kirkilj,

We will consider adding this improvement for flagging actions and setting content colors (background and foreground colors) in these actions. I cannot tell you a precise future version number for this improvement but we have it on our to-do list.


Thank you for your request,
Sorin

so i wondered if there are any new developments in this area?

regards
chris.

[Radu]

Hi Chris,

I found the opened issue, we have not yet approached it.
Could you tell me more about your use case?
How about if you define DITAVAL files which have flagging specified in them?
A profiling condition set in Oxygen can refer to such a DITAVAL file. If we apply a profiling condition set which refers to a DITAVAL file containing flagging information inside it, maybe the application could be improved to use that information to show those highlights also when editing.
So instead of defining those highlights in the profiling condition set you could define them in a DITAVAL and refer to the DITAVAL in the profiling condition set.
How would this approach serve your purpose?

Regards,
Radu

[chrizzbee]

dear radu

i don't have an urgent use case to solve right now. i was just wondering why there is no option to include the defined colours and styles for the editor also in the profiling sets or transformation scenarios.

so i searched the forum and found this thread.

the way you describe the possible solution with the DITAVAL sounds pragmatic. couldn't you provide an additional option either in the profiling condition set or transformation scenario (filtering tab) to include the colours and styles one has defined for the editor? i like the way how i can do this and as a consequent further step i would expect to be able to include this highlighting somewhere for the output ...

regards
chris.

[Radu]

Hi Chris,

So the specific dialog which allows you to define a profiling condition set, besides having the choice between a DITAVAL and a set of included attribute values could have an additional checkbox, something like:

Flag matching elements using already defined color highlights.

?

This would apply both in the editor when you select such a profiling condition set (even if you have opted not to show the profiling colors and styles) and when possible in the published output.

Regards,
Radu

[chrizzbee]

sounds like a good plan to me!