ArborText Editor customization in Oxygen?

[rdelong]

We recently moved to Oxygen Author as our preferred editor after using ArborText Editor (AE) for a number of years. A couple of things that I like about AE is the capability to run macros from the embedded command line (located at the bottom of the editor.) The other thing that I like is that our IA can create custom parameters that specifies, for each user, mapped keyboard characters, for example using a word-joiner character for the keypad / key and non-breaking hyphen to for the keypad - key.

The main advantage with AE's customization capability is restricting attribute values for @otherprops, @product, and @platform attributes. I know that we can do the same thing with DTD updates, but it's a convenient feature in AE.

Any comments or suggestions for applying such features in Oxygen Author?

[Radu]

Hi,

Please see some possible answers below:

A couple of things that I like about AE is the capability to run macros from the embedded command line (located at the bottom of the editor.)

I'm not familiar with Arbortext. Macros which would do what for example?
Oxygen has lots of API so you could always extend the current DITA support and add additional toolbar actions or additional behaviors to the application.

The other thing that I like is that our IA can create custom parameters that specifies, for each user, mapped keyboard characters, for example using a word-joiner character for the keypad / key and non-breaking hyphen to for the keypad - key.

In the Oxygen Preferences->Editor / Templates / Code Templates page you can define code templates (which are either small XML snippets or plain text) and define keyboard shortcuts for them.
Code templates can also be inserted in the Author visual editing mode by pressing ENTER and choosing the code template.

The main advantage with AE's customization capability is restricting attribute values for @otherprops, @product, and @platform attributes. I know that we can do the same thing with DTD updates, but it's a convenient feature in AE.

Oxygen also has a couple of ways to provide controlled attribute values:

http://blog.oxygenxml.com/2015/07/contr ... -your.html

I would suggest using a Subject Scheme map because it also reports validation errors if writers choose an invalid value for an attribute.

Regards,
Radu

[rdelong]

I'm following up on this OP. I've created a number of Code Templates and they work great. What we would like to do now is to distribute them to our team of writers in an effective manner.

I have exported the preference file and edited it to only include the code templates that I have created. Our writers would then import the file (Options > Import Global Options) on their systems.

Is there a distributed method for keeping these code templates updated for each user? I'd like to push any changes to the team rather than relying on them to remember to import the file manually after each notification.

Thanks

[Radu]

Hi Rick,

You can create an Oxygen plugin which imposes a custom set of options using our API when the application starts.
If you are using Oxygen 18.0, I uploaded at some point a sample plugin called "Impose Options" which uses Javascript to load an options XML when the application starts:

https://github.com/oxygenxml/wsaccess-j ... le-plugins

If you are using an older Oxygen version the same "Impose Options" plugin implemented in Java code is available via an add-on update site:

https://www.oxygenxml.com/oxygen_sdk.ht ... ne_plugins

Besides manually installing such a plugin you can bundle your plugin as an add-on using our add-ons support:

https://www.oxygenxml.com/addons.html

Once the plugin is packed as an add-on and installed by users, you can then change its version on the add-on web server and Oxygen should notify users that the plugin has changed so that they can update it.

Out of curiosity how did you distribute macros using your previous editing solution?

Regards,
Radu

[Radu]

Hi,

One more approach, if you are exclusively working in the Author editing mode instead of code templates you can create a framework customization which contributes custom Author actions, actions which can be mounted on the Author toolbar and in the Author menu and contextual menu.
A framework customization can also be shared via an add-on update site:

http://blog.oxygenxml.com/2015/12/shari ... s-for.html

Regards,
Radu