Topicmeta under topichead not applied to webhelp output

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ecccc
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Oct 28, 2025 3:44 pm

Topicmeta under topichead not applied to webhelp output

Post by ecccc »

Hi,
I have the following map structure:

Code: Select all

<map>
 <topicmeta>
  <prodinfo>
   <prodname>Product A</prodname>
  </prodinfo>
 </topicmeta>

 <topichead navtitle="Title">

  <topicmeta>
   <prodinfo>
    <prodname>Subcategory of product A</prodname>
   </prodinfo>
  </topicmeta>

 </topichead>

</map>
Only the map-level prodname metadata ends up in the webhelp output as a meta element, the topicmeta under topichead is not added. If I remove the map-level prodname, there is no prodname meta element in the output. I also tried using the @lockmeta="no" attribute but it doesn't do anything (in fact it seems that it's not implemented at all in DITA-OT). How can I fix this?
julien_lacour
Posts: 726
Joined: Wed Oct 16, 2019 3:47 pm

Re: Topicmeta under topichead not applied to webhelp output

Post by julien_lacour »

Hello,

Could you indicate which version of Oxygen you are using?
Your example is rather incomplete, making it hard to understand your goal. Do you need these metadata to appear in certain topics?
You can check the DITA 1.3 Specification for more details about metadata and how they cascade. If you are interested into cascading these attributes from map to map, you should also check this topic.

And you're right, there's no lockmeta support in DITA-OT, mainly because it has been discontinued in DITA 2.0.

Regards,
Julien
ecccc
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Oct 28, 2025 3:44 pm

Re: Topicmeta under topichead not applied to webhelp output

Post by ecccc »

Hi Julien,

My editor version is 27.1.

My intention is to have the map-level prodinfo in the metadata of all the topics in the output and the topichead-level prodinfo in all the child topics of said topichead. As far as I understood, this is how it should work also according to the article you linked, but I'm not seeing it in the output (as meta elements in the individual HTML files).
julien_lacour
Posts: 726
Joined: Wed Oct 16, 2019 3:47 pm

Re: Topicmeta under topichead not applied to webhelp output

Post by julien_lacour »

Hi,

Unfortunately the DITA specification only mentions map-level topicmeta cascading, there's no mention of layers or levels of metadata, where each group of topics will get the metadata from its parent topichead or topicgroup.

Regards,
Julien
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