Adding profiling attributes and condition sets

[davidprice]

Hello,

As a part of our oXygen-based DITA authoring environment, we'd like to create and distribute a set of profiling attributes and condition sets that are specific to our organization.

In order to implement our own specializations and customizations in oXygen without impacting the ability for authors to edit plain DITA, we've created custom document type associations and added our own {org}-*.framework files to oXygen's framework directory as part of installing our own tool.

I've got a couple of questions related to this that I was hoping I could get some pointers on:

1) Is there a way to import profiling attributes and associate them with a document type other than 'DITA*'? I'd like to specify 'XXX DITA*'instead of 'DITA*'.

2) Is there a way to automatically add profiling attributes and condition sets without requiring users to configure oXygen themselves? Ideally I'd like to be able to add that to our *.framework files and have it pre-configured for users along with our custom document type.

Unfortunately, we have to develop to oXygen 14.2 as a target right now for organizational reasons, but may have the option of upgrading to oXygen 15.1 and using Subject Scheme maps to do all or part of this, if that would allow us more flexibility.

Thanks,
David

[Radu]

Hello David,

Please see some answers below:

1) Is there a way to import profiling attributes and associate them with a document type other than 'DITA*'? I'd like to specify 'XXX DITA*'instead of 'DITA*'.

When defining a profiling attribute there is indeed the Document Type pattern field. This patten can use * and ? as wildcards. Oxygen will use this pattern against the list of document type associations in the Document Type Association Preferences page to match one or more document types to which the defined profiling attribute should apply.
So that would mean yes if I understood your question.

2) Is there a way to automatically add profiling attributes and condition sets without requiring users to configure oXygen themselves? Ideally I'd like to be able to add that to our *.framework files and have it pre-configured for users along with our custom document type.

You are not the first one to request configuring profiling attributes at document type level. We'll try to implement this in a future version and update the forum thread when we do.

Until then you would have the following options:

1) In the Preferences->Editor / Edit modes / Author / Profiling/Conditional Text page there is a radio button at the bottom Global Options <-> Project Options. You could switch it to project options which would mean that the entire page would be saved in the current project opened in Oxygen.
Then if you would all share the same project anyone opening the project would get to use the same options. This is the approach we have for our user manual which is stored on a common subversion repository with its own project shared among us:

http://www.oxygenxml.com/demo/Collabora ... rsion.html

2) The same as in (1) pass the options to project level and use those options as default global options for the others:

http://www.oxygenxml.com/doc/ug-oxygen/ ... tions.html

3) Export your global options using the menu Options->Export Global Options entry.
Then the others could import their global options from yours but this would overwrite all their settings.

Unfortunately, we have to develop to oXygen 14.2 as a target right now for organizational reasons, but may have the option of upgrading to oXygen 15.1 and using Subject Scheme maps to do all or part of this, if that would allow us more flexibility.

The Subject Scheme Map approach with Oxygen 15.0 or newer would indeed allow you to define all profiling attributes in a subject scheme map referenced in the main DITA Map:

http://www.oxygenxml.com/demo/DITA_Subject_Scheme.html

But you would still need to define profiling condition sets if you are using them.
Also in recent versions of Oxygen 15.x the Editor / Edit modes / Author / Profiling/Conditional Text preferences page has a button called Import from DITAVAL which can be used to give Oxygen a list of DITAVAL files from which it should auto-detect profiling attributes and profiling condition sets.

Regards,
Radu

[davidprice]

Thanks Radu! I think that answered all of my questions. I did have a follow-up question about the DITAVAL import process:

When using the DITAVAL import, it looks like the process imports everything with a match to "DITA*". Is there a way to configure that import process, or specify something in the DITAVAL XML, that would allow us to import with a different document type match pattern (i.e., 'XXX DITA*')?

Thanks,
David

[Radu]

Hi David,

Sorry but not, you would need to edit each profiling attribute.
Maybe you could edit the name of your document type to something like DITA Coyote in order to match the DITA* pattern.

Regards,
Radu

[ACH]

Also in recent versions of Oxygen 15.x the Editor / Edit modes / Author / Profiling/Conditional Text preferences page has a button called Import from DITAVAL which can be used to give Oxygen a list of DITAVAL files from which it should auto-detect profiling attributes and profiling condition sets.

Apologies for the thread necromancy, but could I ask you to clarify: if (a list of) DITAVAL file(s) is used in the Editor / Edit modes / Author / Profiling/Conditional Text preferences page and the root ditamap contains a subject scheme, which set of profiling attributes will be displayed?

We have a set of subject schemes to define profiling attributes and are looking to distribute condition sets as well, and using DITAVAL files is an option (assuming it does not clash with subject schemes).

[Radu]

Hi,

The subject scheme map is considered the most important, so when Oxygen finds one referenced by the DITA Map opened in the DITA Maps Manager view, it will use it for controlled attribute values and ignore the values set in the Preferences.

Regards,
Radu