XML authoring improvements

[Micaela Monroe]

Hi there,

My team uses Oxygen Web in Ixiasoft and many of them are very XML and DITA savvy. Some of them find working in XML faster than the authoring environment. These people struggle to work in XML mode in the web environment. Writers would like these pieces to help their experience:
- When switching back and forth between XML mode and author mode, writers would like Oxygen to sync the current location to between the two editing modes.
-The ability to expand and collapse elements and their child nodes in the XML view.
- Oxygen to auto-insert end tags (rather than by starting to type <)
- Oxygen to suggest attribute values.
- The ability to change text size.
- Oxygen to auto-indent XML in the way that it does in the desktop.
- Auto-suggestion of elements without having to Ctrl + Space, similar to what happens in the desktop. (Sometimes Ctrl + Space doesn't suggest the correct end tags. You can end up with duplicated end tags and ignores certain tags remain open)


Thank you!
Micaela

[cosminef]

Hello,

Thank you for the feedback and interest you have shown in our product.
The Oxygen XML Web Author application primarily emphasizes the Author mode, providing assistance to non-technical users when it comes to editing, such as subject matter experts.
However, we've noted down your feature requests (WA-7357) and would like to know which of your suggestions take top priority.

Best,
Cosmin

[Micaela Monroe]

Thank you Cosmin! I do think the web author is great for non-technical users - we are starting to experiment with them working in the tool. I am just logging this because we're in Ixiasoft which means that our more savvy users must work with this tool that was not intended for them. One of these savvy writers will reply with the priority in here.

[Dave Resch]

I am on the team with Micaela.
These are my top priorities for Web Author - Text mode improvements:

1. Synchronize current document location in Author and Text modes (2-way sync) to preserve the current location when switching from Text to Author mode and from Author to Text mode.
   • Existing behavior synchronizes location only from Author mode to Text mode.
   • Changing the current location in Text mode has no effect on location in Author mode.
2. Functional equivalent of the "Content Completion Assistant" in Text mode.
   • Insert complete elements, both start and end tags.
   • Insert required descendants, e.g., <li> child of <ol> and <ul>
   • Don't offer to close open ancestor if not valid, e.g., </steps> between <step> elements.
3. Consistent auto-indent, preferably with configurable depth.
   • Existing behavior works on only the highest level of selected elements.

Thank you for considering our needs.
Dave R

[Radu]

Hi,
As a side note, Ixiasoft also has the possibility to integrate in Eclipse and the Oxygen XML Editor Eclipse plugin already has the advanced XML text based editing functionality.
Regards,
Radu

[cosminef]

Hello,

Thank you for your feedback.

Changing the current location in Text mode has no effect on location in Author mode.

We have registered a feature request (WA-7358) for this feature and when it becomes available we will notify you.

Insert complete elements, both start and end tags.

This feature is already registered in our internal tracking system (WA-5777) and we added your vote to it

Insert required descendants, e.g., <li> child of <ol> and <ul>

We have registered a feature request (WA-7359) for this feature and when it becomes available we will notify you.

Don't offer to close open ancestor if not valid, e.g., </steps> between <step> elements.

We have registered a feature request (WA-7361) for this feature and when it becomes available we will notify you.

Consistent auto-indent, preferably with configurable depth.

This feature is already registered in our internal tracking system (WA-6144) and we added your vote to it.

Best,
Cosmin

[Micaela Monroe]

Thanks Radu and Cosmin! My understanding is that Ixiasoft is moving features over to the web so they can deprecate the Eclipse version. We've been discouraged from using the desktop version and have decided to use Eclipse only for administrative functionality in anticipation of this.