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Refactor action to resolve DITA conref

Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 9:36 am
by jelovirt
Oxygen 10.2

In Author view with a DITA document, when you have content that is conreffed, the content is shown in gray background and cannot be edited. Could a context menu Refactoring > Resolve conref that would resolve the conref? One use case:
  1. User has two DITA files, task_en-US.dita and task_en-GB.dita. The task_en-GB.dita file uses conref to pull content from task_en-US.dita.
  2. User opens task_en-GB.dita and wants to modify the file so that it's no longer the same as task_en-US.dita.
  3. Use selects action to resolve the conref.
  4. The conref in task_en-GB.dita is resolved and conref attribute is removed, creating an editable copy of the content from task_en-US.dita.
Another way to call the resolve action could be when the user tries to edit conreffed content, oXygen promps "Do you want to resolve the conref content? This replace the conref with a copy of the source content".

Re: Refactor action to resolve DITA conref

Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 10:08 am
by Radu
Hi Jarno,

This seems like a good idea and I think that it can be implemented as an extension operation using the existing Author API.
We are still considering a name for the operation. You suggested Resolve conref. Do you think this name clearly suggests to users the steps the action performs?

Regards,
Radu

Re: Refactor action to resolve DITA conref

Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 11:50 am
by jelovirt
I was thinking about the naming myself too.

Resolve conref may not be clear enough for "normal" users, who may think "but doesn't oXygen already resolve the conref because it's showing it to me". I also worry that users don't understand that when you run the resolving action, it's no longer a conref and they will not get updates to the content when the original conref source document changes. The name "Resolve conref" may not emphasize that enough, but unfortunately I don't have a better suggestion. Maybe "Resolve and replace conref", but that's a bit long.

Maybe users will just have to learn what the action does, sometimes the hard way?

Re: Refactor action to resolve DITA conref

Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 12:08 pm
by Radu
Here are the names we came up with :)
"Replace conref with content"
"Replace with content"
"Merge Referenced Content"

Re: Refactor action to resolve DITA conref

Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 1:36 pm
by jelovirt
I'd vote 1 or 2.

Re: Refactor action to resolve DITA conref

Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 2:16 pm
by Radu
We'll probably go with one of those