Moving a set of topics *and* their references to a new location
Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2020 5:28 pm
Hi all,
In our DITA books, we use the following directory structure:
Each chapter has a directory that contains its topic files. Image files are in a graphics/ directory located where the topic file is.
Now, a writer needs to move featureB -- topic and image files -- from chapter 1 to chapter 2. In the DITA Maps Manager, this is easy - drag and drop that topic set from one chapter to another.
But this does not move the files on disk. And this is where the challenges are:
Is there a "Get referenced files" way to select a set of topics in the DITA Maps Manager, then get the list of files (topic files, images, etc.) directly referenced (href) by those topics? (Cross-references wouldn't count.)
The issue of reconciling disk structure versus map structure disappears if you use a single ginormous flat sea of files on disk. Does anyone actually do this?
In our DITA books, we use the following directory structure:
Code: Select all
book.ditamap
book/chapter1/graphics/pic_featureA_a.png
book/chapter1/graphics/pic_featureA_b.png
book/chapter1/graphics/pic_featureB_a.png
book/chapter1/graphics/pic_featureB_b.png
book/chapter1/topic_featureA_1.dita
book/chapter1/topic_featureA_2.dita
book/chapter1/topic_featureA_3.dita
book/chapter1/topic_featureB_1.dita
book/chapter1/topic_featureB_2.dita
book/chapter1/topic_featureB_3.dita
book/chapter2/graphics/...
book/chapter2/...
Now, a writer needs to move featureB -- topic and image files -- from chapter 1 to chapter 2. In the DITA Maps Manager, this is easy - drag and drop that topic set from one chapter to another.
But this does not move the files on disk. And this is where the challenges are:
- In the Project view, I can only drag-and-drop files one at a time.
- I can't have two Project view folders open to drag between them (or can I?).
- The topic filenames are such that their associated feature is not self-evident, so I must alternate between remembering one or a few filenames from the DITA Maps Manager, then finding and moving them in the DITA Maps Manager.
- The images files in graphics/ must also come along to a graphics/ folder in the new location.
- There could be over a hundred topic and image files to move in some cases.
- The Master Files feature updates references, but this must run for each move operation.
Is there a "Get referenced files" way to select a set of topics in the DITA Maps Manager, then get the list of files (topic files, images, etc.) directly referenced (href) by those topics? (Cross-references wouldn't count.)
The issue of reconciling disk structure versus map structure disappears if you use a single ginormous flat sea of files on disk. Does anyone actually do this?