Linking that is neither cross ref nor web link

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mdslup
Posts: 167
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2018 1:34 am

Linking that is neither cross ref nor web link

Post by mdslup »

I maintain a server with several different manuals (each manual, the result of a webhelp resonsive transformation scenario from its own ditamap).

Sometimes, I need these manuals to link to each other (again, remember, none of these are maintained in the same ditamap).

Now, I *could* use a "hard" link (ie, an xref of type 'web link'), as if I was linking to an external website. But I'd much prefer to tell Oxygen to create a link that traverses that directory structure that I know exists on the server. For instance, if I have a folder called "Manual_1" on the server, I want to be able to tell Oxygen, "Create a link that looks like this: ../../Manual_2/File.html"
where the "../../" gets me *out* of the Manual 1 directory on the server.

Is this possible?
Radu
Posts: 8992
Joined: Fri Jul 09, 2004 5:18 pm

Re: Linking that is neither cross ref nor web link

Post by Radu »

Hi,

Why not use a link with scope=external set on it?

Code: Select all

<xref href="../../Manual_2/File.html" scope="external" format="html">Some text here</xref>
The href attribute value should remain exactly as it is in the published HTML file.

The DITA standard also has a feature for cross-publication references using key references to refer to topics from other DITA maps, the publishing engine does not support such links out of the box but one of our clients managed to build a publishing plugin which attempts to resolve such key references at build time:

https://github.com/chrispy-snps/DITA-fi ... html-links

Regards,
Radu
Radu Coravu
<oXygen/> XML Editor
http://www.oxygenxml.com
mdslup
Posts: 167
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2018 1:34 am

Re: Linking that is neither cross ref nor web link

Post by mdslup »

Thanks very much!
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