How to create a lookup list

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edwin ariens
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Apr 07, 2016 10:01 am

How to create a lookup list

Post by edwin ariens »

Hi
I want to add a list of terms to my document that can be used as a reference. The reason is I want top be able to replace these terms in one single reference file instead of find/replace all occurrences, find/replace in large documents can be precarious.

Preferably i would like to mark a word with a simple <term> tag. When the output is created the word should be replaced by the value in the list of terms. I know this is possible as I've seen it before, however I have to start from scratch and do not know how.

I've already build a working glossary, but this is not what I intend, the glossary is fine for terms that added to the document in a printed glossary. I want an external lookup that is not part of the document. Can someone provide me with an example that I can use?
Radu
Posts: 9041
Joined: Fri Jul 09, 2004 5:18 pm

Re: How to create a lookup list

Post by Radu »

Hi,

I'm not sure I understand what you want. So you want to reuse small pieces of text in various places in the document?
Maybe you should take a look at how key references can be used to reuse content:

http://blog.oxygenxml.com/2015/11/dita- ... orial.html

Regards,
Radu
Radu Coravu
<oXygen/> XML Editor
http://www.oxygenxml.com
xephon
Posts: 140
Joined: Mon Nov 24, 2014 1:49 pm
Location: Greven/Germany

Re: How to create a lookup list

Post by xephon »

Hi Edwin,

if you are searching for something like a terminology checker you should have a look at the DITA-OT plugin org.doctales.terminology. This plugin (among other things) generates a Schematron file that can be used for terminology validation.


Greetings,
Stefan
stefan-jung.org – Your DITA/DITA-OT XML consultant
edwin ariens
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Apr 07, 2016 10:01 am

Re: How to create a lookup list

Post by edwin ariens »

Hello Radu and Xephon

Thanks for your reply. What i want to do is more like the translations strings file string-en-us etc.. that i find in the \frameworks\dita\DITA-OT\xsl\common folder. As I understand correctly these you can add strings in an external xsl file, for instance <str name="Figure">Figure</str>
When i change the string to <str name="Figure">FIGURE</str> the ouput will change to all caps.

The same I want to do for UI strings in our product. I want to be able to refer to an external xsl file that contains all UI strings. I just don't remember how to refer to this file from the dita topic itself

Best regards, Edwin
Radu
Posts: 9041
Joined: Fri Jul 09, 2004 5:18 pm

Re: How to create a lookup list

Post by Radu »

Hi Edwin,

Just to double check, you are using the DITA standard, right?
Those specific variables from the DITA OT folder you are referring to are for static texts, texts which are not in the actual DITA content but they appear in the published output.
If you want to reuse pieces of content in DITA you have various reuse mechanisms. This is why I originally pointed you to the blog post which should go through all the reuse possibilities which exist in the DITA vocabulary.

Regards,
Radu
Radu Coravu
<oXygen/> XML Editor
http://www.oxygenxml.com
edwin ariens
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Apr 07, 2016 10:01 am

Re: How to create a lookup list

Post by edwin ariens »

Hi Radu,
thanks i will use keywords it seems to do the trick, we want to use standard dita. What i referred to was a customized setup.

Best regards, Edwin
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