Responsive WebHelp - <properties> Table Outputs Incorrectly

[ohne_hosen]

I have several two-column <properties> tables set up like this:

Code: Select all

<properties>

<property>

<propvalue>Foo</propvalue>

<propdesc>Foo</propdesc>

</property>

<property>

<propvalue>Foo</propvalue>

<propdesc>Foo</propdesc>

</property>

</properties>

However, when I output Responsive WebHelp, it seems to force the table to be three columns, with "Value" and "Description" heading the first and second columns, then in the rows below, the cell is empty and the content is in the second and third column (see image linked below). I should note that this is ASP output but I'm not sure that should make a difference.

Image link: https://imgur.com/a/ROVvteS

I have tried using the <prophead> element with <propvaluehd> and <propdeschd> elements at the head of the table, but I still get the bad table.

When I output CHM, I get a two-column table as intended, with the automatic "Value" and "Description" headers over the correct content.

I would rather not change all of these tables to CALS to get them to format correctly; is this a bug or am I doing something wrong?

[Radu]

Hi,

I tested your samples and indeed there seems to be some inconsistency in the way in which the publishing engine treats properties tables, I added an issue for it:

https://github.com/dita-ot/dita-ot/issues/3113

Thing is that probably most people using properties tables use them with 3 columns "proptype", "propvalue" and "propdesc":

https://www.oxygenxml.com/dita/1.3/spec ... rties.html

but indeed the "proptype" looks like an optional table cell so when not specified the table should show only two columns instead of three.

If you do not want to use the "proptype" element in your properties tables, as workarounds you could either convert the properties tables to simple tables or I could try to look in the XSLTs which generate the properties table for the HTML output and give you a proposed fix.

Regards,
Radu

[ohne_hosen]

Hi Radu,

I have over 200 of these tables; if you have a proposed fix I would be grateful. Otherwise, converting them is probably the best option. I am using Oxygen 20.1 build 2018061313 with DITA-OT 2.x.

[Radu]

Hi,

In the XSLT stylesheet OXYGEN_INSTALL_DIR\frameworks\dita\DITA-OT2.x\plugins\org.dita.html5\xsl\properties.xsl there is an XSLT template:

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<xsl:template match="*[contains(@class, ' reference/property ')]">

on which you could comment out the xsl:otherwise:

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<xsl:otherwise>

            <xsl:apply-templates select="$empty-property/*[contains(@class, $class)]">

              <xsl:with-param name="ctx" select="$property" as="element()" tunnel="yes"/>

            </xsl:apply-templates>

          </xsl:otherwise>

and in the XSLT template OXYGEN_INSTALL_DIR\frameworks\dita\DITA-OT2.x\plugins\org.dita.html5\xsl\reference.xsl comment out the XSLT template:

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<xsl:template match="*[contains(@class,' reference/properties ')]" mode="dita2html:get-max-entry-count" as="xs:integer">

    <xsl:sequence select="3"/>

  </xsl:template>

This should be done by implementing a DITA OT plugin as opposed to modifying directly the XSLT stylesheets.
Or you could convert all the property tables to simple tables using a custom XML refactoring action based on XSLT and applying it on all your files:

https://www.oxygenxml.com/doc/versions/ ... tions.html

Regards,
Radu