XML Author

What's New in Oxygen XML Author 19.0

Version 19.0 of the oXygen XML Author brings you a variety of new features and improvements that focus on productivity, efficiency, and simplicity.

This major release includes numerous productivity improvements for DITA, updated support for DocBook 5.1 features, enhancements to the search mechanism in WebHelp, a new built-in CSS to PDF processing engine called Chemistry, additional features for the Markdown editor, and much much more. As usual, this version also contains numerous new API and component updates.

There are changes in:

DITA

Fast Create Multiple Topics at Once

The new Fast Create Topics feature allows you to quickly create multiple new topics at once and you can specify their hierarchical structure within the DITA map at the time of creation. A common use-case for this feature is when you need to insert a new chapter or section with multiple topics and you have the structure and titles planned out in advance.

DITA Reusable Components View

The DITA Reusable Components view collects all of the keys that are defined in the root map and presents them in a dynamic table allowing you to easily find the key you need, using filters and several sorting options. Once you find a key, you can insert it as a link or variable reference, using the contextual menu, or you can drag and drop or double-click on a key to create a key reference in the fastest way possible.

Convert between DITA Topic Types

A new feature was added that allows you to convert an existing DITA topic to a different topic type. For example, you can convert a DITA Task to a DITA Topic and vice versa. Behind the scenes, Oxygen will map the structure of the original DITA topic to a structure that fits the new topic type.

Introducing Chemistry - Built-in CSS-based PDF Processor for Publishing DITA to PDF

Our early access CSS-based PDF processing engine, called Chemistry, is available to make it easier to obtain customized PDF output using CSS. To use it, modify the built-in DITA Map to PDF WYSIWYG transformation scenario and in the Parameters tab, change the css.processor.type parameter to "chemistry". Because this is experimental/early access functionality, we will appreciate your feedback.

Content Completion for IDs in Text Mode

When inserting DITA conkeyref and keyref attributes in Text mode, you need to specify an ID pointing to a specific element in the referenced topic. Now the Content Completion Assistant presents all the element IDs from the referenced topic, thus you can easily select a correct ID value.

DocBook

Publish Tracked Changes and Comments to PDF Output

A new transformation scenario, DocBook PDF (Show Change Tracking and Comments), was added to allow you to include comments and tracked change information in the PDF output for DocBook 5 documents.

Multimedia Support in DocBook

Oxygen now includes actions to easily insert references to video or audio content in DocBook documents. The visual Author editing mode displays the multimedia content and allows you to play it in-place. On the publishing side, the multimedia content will appear in HTML and PDF output.

Markdown Editor

Visual Author Editor

WebHelp

Search Auto-Completion

Keywords and documentation titles are displayed while you are typing in the search field in WebHelp output. This improvements helps you to construct better search queries.

Other

3-Way Directory Comparison Tool Redesigned

The 3-Way Directory Comparison tool was redesigned to provide a set of merge actions that you can select to automatically integrate changes made by others with your local changes.

Automatic Spell Checking in Review Comments

The Automatic Spell Checking feature now also works when you add, edit, or reply to comments in Author mode or the Review view.

API

Component Updates