PDF2 customizing a customisation...
Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 12:41 pm
I have PDF2 customisation built that is used from within an Oxygen 19.0 project
(the publication of manuals is done by the revising author right after approval from his authoring environment)
I have the customisation directory set up outside the DITA-OT and Oxygen environment,
that contains all of our local branding stuff and code (includes artwork, vars and index files)
Now I need a variant on this customisation, specialising only a few templates and the paper size
For that I have a new customisation directory in the same package, with a different scenario from the same project
I have tried two things
- using a nextCatalog in the variant catalog.xml to refer to the base brand customisation
- import both the custom xslt of the base brand customisation at the level of the variant customisation (and do the same with the font catalog)
Both options work reasonably well
BUT
I can't seem to find a way to make the variant customisation pick up the artwork and var files from the base customisation
and an elegant way to pick up the index references from the base catalog
Currently I have an exact copy of vars, indexes and artwork in
The reference to the "common" seems hardcoded in code at a level I don't want to mess with in the customisation
I need to control the entire application from a single project directory.
Portability is way more important than avoiding the vars duplication
Still it would make my development efforts way more robust if I only had a single copy of the vars and indexes
Any good ideas I am missing?
Thanks
Geert
PS: having multiple DITA OT scenarios on the project level, it would be nice if I could make the common plugin scenarios invisible to my users.
Can that be done too?
(the publication of manuals is done by the revising author right after approval from his authoring environment)
I have the customisation directory set up outside the DITA-OT and Oxygen environment,
that contains all of our local branding stuff and code (includes artwork, vars and index files)
Now I need a variant on this customisation, specialising only a few templates and the paper size
For that I have a new customisation directory in the same package, with a different scenario from the same project
I have tried two things
- using a nextCatalog in the variant catalog.xml to refer to the base brand customisation
- import both the custom xslt of the base brand customisation at the level of the variant customisation (and do the same with the font catalog)
Both options work reasonably well
BUT
I can't seem to find a way to make the variant customisation pick up the artwork and var files from the base customisation
and an elegant way to pick up the index references from the base catalog
Currently I have an exact copy of vars, indexes and artwork in
The reference to the "common" seems hardcoded in code at a level I don't want to mess with in the customisation
I need to control the entire application from a single project directory.
Portability is way more important than avoiding the vars duplication
Still it would make my development efforts way more robust if I only had a single copy of the vars and indexes
Any good ideas I am missing?
Thanks
Geert
PS: having multiple DITA OT scenarios on the project level, it would be nice if I could make the common plugin scenarios invisible to my users.
Can that be done too?