Opening large DocBook files in Oxygen takes a long time

[csun]

Hi,

By default, Oxygen opens DocBook files for me in Author mode. Most times it works fine, but when it tries to open a large DocBook file (it is large because of the amount of XIncludes), the Author mode can take 10 minutes or even longer to respond.

Do you have some recommendations on improving its response time?

Below are some ideas I had...

Is there a way to set up Oxygen to conditionally open files in Text mode?
- If a file takes less than 1 minute to open in Author mode, then open in Author mode;
- otherwise, open it in Text mode.

Or, after a file tries to open in Author mode for longer than e.g. 1 minute, can we let it turn off XInclude resolution automatically, so that hopefully it can still open in Author mode but more quickly?

Thanks,
Charles

[Radu]

Hi Charles,

Indeed, if the XML document has lots of xi:includes Oxygen will try to expand them all when switching to the Author visual editing mode.
Unfortunately for now we do not have such a feature which would automatically halt the open operation (or avoid expanding xi:includes) once a decision would be taken that the operation takes too long.
There still should be a progress dialog which appears when you open the XML document, and one stage of the progress is the stage in which references are resolved. I think that if you cancel the progress dialog in this stage the XML document should be opened in the Author visual editing mode but with not all references expanded.

Regards,
Radu

[zuza]

+ 1

I got to this thread by searching something like "oxygen xml taking too long to load bookmap".

I have a similar issue with DITA bookmaps where there are several other (levels of) maps included and lots of references to solve.


Thank you

Ozana

[Radu]

Hi Ozana,

We do not have a setting to avoid expanding submaps when opening the main DITA Map. Maybe we could add one in the future.
Do you have this problem when opening the main DITA Map in the DITA Maps Manager or in the main editing area? For the DITA Maps Manager we need to go through all submaps to gather all keys so for this specific view we cannot really inhibit looking into submaps.

Regards,
Radu

[zuza]

Hi Radu,

I am talking about opening a map in the main editing area - is there an option to choose to always open maps in text mode instead of author mode? If not, it would be useful to have one, either per project or global.

I rarely look at maps in Author mode, especially for maps that take long to resolve references.

Thank you.

Best regards,
Ozana

[Radu]

Hi Ozana,

You can go to the Oxygen Preferences->"Document Type Association" page, extend the "DITA Map" framework configuration (there is an "Extend" button there) and in the dialog choose the "Initial Edit Mode" to be "Text". Then click OK in the dialog used to edit the framework extension, and save the preferences dialog by clicking OK.

Regards,
Radu

[zuza]

Wow, thanks a lot. It would never cross my mind to look at those options.

Much better now!

Ozana

[sorin_carbunaru]

Hello,

Just wanted to update this thread and let you know that in Oxygen 22.1 we added the Expand references to other maps when opening a map in Author mode option in the DITA preferences page. It can be deactivated for faster opening maps with a lot of submaps in the Author page. The option makes its effect when the map is reopened in the Author page.

Best wishes,
Sorin Carbunaru
oXygen XML