Oxygen XML Forum

I think many people would feel comfortable if they can directly edit dita topics in the ditamap authoring mode, instead of having to open each topic in a separate window before editing it.

This could be a nice feature because this is exactly how people edit a document in Microsoft Word. In MS Word, you can navigate through the whole Word document and edit the sections whenever you want without having to open each section in a separate window. Therefore, authors are not distracted by opening, closing, and switching between different topic windows. Authors can, therefore, focus on their content, and feel much more comfortable if they can edit topics directly in the ditamap authoring mode.

Oxygen currently makes it possible to resolve all the topics in the ditamap so that authors can navigate through the whole document. It could be even nicer if authors can edit the topics directly in a ditamap!

Thank you.

Hi,

We actually do have plans to look into this after the Oxygen 22.1 release which will be in a couple of weeks.
So possibly we'll be able to implement some editing support in Oxygen 23 (Autumn this year), we'll update this forum thread when/if we manage to do this.
Do you want full topic editing with custom actions or would you settle for making minor insertion/deletion changes? Do you plan to edit like this full time or only for situations when you want to make minor changes, like find/replace content in the entire map or spell check?

Regards,
Radu

Hi Radu,

I'm so glad to hear that. I actually want a full support for directly authoring in a DITAmap. I'm a student and I use Oxygen and DITA to organize my class notes. DITA is wonderful at note-taking because it helps me efficiently organize my knowledge.

Now I cannot use Oxygen to take notes in class because it's too annoying creating new topic files and switching between topics in class. I use markdown and then convert my notes into DITA afterward.

I think such full support would be useful in many use cases. Authors would always feel much more comfortable if they can edit DITA topics as they do in a word processor like MS Word.

While directly authoring in a DITAmap, it would be nice if we can create new topics right in the author mode and the topic file can be automatically named according to its title.

I can't wait to update to Oxygen 23 and try your new features!

Hi,

Thanks for the extra details, I added them on the opened internal issue.
Right now the fastest ways to create new DITA topics in a DITA Map opened in the DITA Maps Manager view are:
1) Right click on a topic reference or on the root map element and choose "Append child->New .."
2) RIght click and choose "Fast create new topics" which allows you to create a bunch a topics at once just by specifying their titles.

Regards,
Radu

Hi Radu,

I have writers that are asking for such a combination of features:

• Allow topic editing in a map with resolved topics (this request)
• Allow resolved-maps to be opened from a selected branch of the map

This would allow them to open all topics relevant to a particular feature, then edit those topics while considering the overall context (which topics provide what information).

Hi Chris,

Allow topic editing in a map with resolved topics (this request)

I added your contact details on the already opened issue: EXM-45169

Allow resolved-maps to be opened from a selected branch of the map

Interesting. I added an internal issue with ID EXM-45602

Regards,
Radu

Perhaps related, we also have writers asking for the ability to create PDF Chemistry PDFs for single topic files or selected branches of a map, but with the variables in the current book being resolved. (I agree that this is not an easy problem to solve!!)

Maybe both of these could be built on some kind of "extract a submap from the current map" type of functionality?

Hello Chris,

Regarding the first part of you request, the "DITA PDF - based on HTML5 & CSS" transformation already uses the root map to resolve the variables (via the parameter 'args.root.map').

For the second part, I logged a feature request in our tracking system to see if we can process Dita Maps Manager selection (including both topics and maps). I will let you know the issue's progress as usual.
At the moment, the only solution is to split the content in submap directly and transform those submaps using the 'DITA Map PDF - based on HTML5 & CSS' transformation.

Regards,
Julien

Hi Julien,

I figured out why this is not working for me.

Now I see that maps and topics have their own sets of transformations:


and that the map and topic versions of the PDF Chemistry transformation have a different "Type" value:


Our "Synopsys PDF" transformation (we have several of them) was specialized from the map transformation, not the topic transformation. Topic-level publishing only inherits keys if the "Type" is set for topics.

Does this mean I need to maintain separate sets of our custom transformations, for maps and for topics?

I also noticed that regardless of which type you've specialized from, both transformation types are shown for whatever map or topic type you're transforming:

This seems to work pretty well! I deleted my five project transformations, then created five map transformations and five topic transformations in my DITA framework. So far so good!

Hello Chris,

Indeed you need to maintain at least one transformation per type.

For the other part, you did the right thing already: when transformations are set at project level, they are available everywhere, but when you set them at framework level, they will become available only for your specific documents.

Regards,
Julien

Hi,

Related to the initial request on this forum thread (Possibilities to directly edit dita topics in a ditamap) we released Oxygen 23 and in Oxygen 23 we added in the Preferences->"Editor / Edit Modes / Author" page a checkbox named "Allow referenced content to be edited" which can be enabled. Then if in the "DITA Maps Manager" you have the main DITA Map opened you can use the "Open Map with resolved topics" action located on the view's toolbar to open the map with resolved and editable topics.

Regards,
Radu