Oxygen XML Editor 14.1

October 19, 2012

Related versions: 14.0 14.2

Version 14.1 of Oxygen XML Editor makes XML authoring available to everybody, by allowing attributes to be edited directly in the Author mode through form-like controls and placing actions directly in the document flow. This expands the range of XML documents that can be edited visually from text-centric to data oriented documents.

The built-in frameworks support was improved, especially the DITA support which features better error reporting and a rename/move topic refactoring action.

The XML developers can use Oxygen XML to start experimenting with the XML Schema 1.1 standard, while the huge XML files support allows them to edit multi GB documents.

As many partners depend on Oxygen XML for their solutions, a lot of effort was put into improving and expanding the API to allow them to develop more integrated Oxygen-powered applications.

As usual, Oxygen updates many components to their latest versions, the embedded SVN client supports Subversion 1.7 and the Eclipse plugin distribution works with Eclipse version 4.2.

There are changes in:

Form-Based Editing in Author

Improved Author Review Support

Author CSS Extensions

DITA

DocBook Visual Editing

XML Schema 1.1 Support

Huge XML Files Support

Form-Based Editing in Author

Edit Attributes Directly in the Author Mode

XML attributes can be presented using checkboxes, drop-down lists, text fields, date pickers, etc., directly in the Author editing mode, thus making them easily accessible to all users. This form based editing functionality allows OxygenXML Author to be a solution not only for narrative documents such as DITA and DocBook, but practically for any type of XML document that may contain data, narrative content or a mix of them.

Trigger Actions Directly from the Author Mode

Specific actions can be embedded in the rendered document allowing the users to easily trigger them directly. This simplifies the user experience as instead of having a complex toolbar to hold all possible actions you can just place them directly in the Author mode, in the appropriate locations. For example, deleting a point of interest from a travel guide can be triggered by a "remove" action placed just below the point of interest.

Trigger Actions Directly from the Author View

Edit Profiling Attributes Using Form Controls

Oxygen allows you to edit displayed profiling attributes in the Author mode using a pop-up selector form control. This enhances user productivity when working on heavily profiled documents.

Form-Based Element Editing

The form controls can not only be used for attributes but also to edit XML element values, when these have simple types (no nested elements). For example, dates, numbers, boolean values, text, etc.

Improved Author Review Support

Track Changes-Aware Outline View

When track changes is enabled, deleted or inserted elements are highlighted both in the editing area and in the Outline view. Deleted elements are rendered with strike-through characters, while inserted elements are underlined.

Compact Display of Callouts

The reviewing callouts are no longer pushed outside the visible area in case the document you are editing contains wide images or space-preserve text sections. The background of the callout becomes semitransparent allowing you to view and edit the underlying content.

Author CSS Extensions

Form-Based Editing

To enable the form-based editing functionality, Oxygen XML provides two CSS extension functions: oxy_editor and oxy_label.

Support for Cyrillic Characters in the list-style-type CSS Property

Support for the list-style-type CSS property was improved with the addition of the following values: -oxy-lower-cyrillic-ru, -oxy-lower-cyrillic-uk, -oxy-upper-cyrillic-ru, and -oxy-upper-cyrillic-uk.

Support for Specifying Widths to Inline Elements

Added support for the width property of inline elements making possible to create table-like layouts for various XML structures.

Support for Background Images

The CSS 2.1 background-image, background-repeat, and background-position properties are supported in Oxygen XML.

Support for Semitransparent Colors

Added support for semitransparent colors specified using the CSS3 rgba function. This, together with the background image support, makes it possible to create very attractive user interfaces - check out the travel guide sample located in the install folder of Oxygen XML.

Support for Configuring Specific Background and Foreground Tag Colors for Any XML Element

The -oxy-tags-background-color and -oxy-tags-color CSS properties allow you to control the background and foreground colors for any particular XML element.

DITA

Refactoring Action to Move or Rename DITA Topics

You can safely rename or move a topic to a new location using the DITA-aware refactoring actions. These actions also automatically update all the references to that topic in all the topics and maps that reference it, starting with the current DITA map opened in the DITA Maps Manager view.

Move or Rename a Topic Referenced in the DITA Maps Manager View

In-Place Attributes Editing for DITA Maps

When a DITA Map is edited in the Author mode, a new alternate CSS is available, allowing you to edit topic reference attributes in-place, using the form controls support.

Support for In-Place Attributes Editing When a DITA Map Is Opened in the Author Mode

Import Profiling Attributes from DITAVAL Files

Oxygen XML enables the profiling support when profiling attributes are defined in its options. You can import profiling attributes from your existing .ditaval files. You can also merge these profiling attributes with the existing ones, or replace them completely.

Improved Error Reporting

Oxygen XML provides a link to a documentation page for errors detected while running a DITA Open Toolkit transformation. The DITA map Validate and Check For Completeness action provides more options, runs up to 5 times faster than before and has more precise localization for the detected errors.

Better Support for Very Large DITA Maps

The opening time for very large DITA Maps was reduced, this action being about 5 times faster than before.

Support for keyref to Metadata

When a keyref to metadata defined in the DITA Map is present in a topic, the referenced content is presented in-place as a read-only section.

Upgraded DITA OT to Version 1.6.1

The DITA Open Toolkit was upgraded to version 1.6.1.

DocBook Visual Editing

Select or Search to Insert Cross References in DocBook Documents

The actions for inserting cross references (links or xrefs) show a dialog box which allows you to easily select or search for the target of the link either in the current file or in an included module.

Improved XInclude Insertion Dialog Box

The action for inserting an xi:include shows a preview of each possible target element thus allowing you to see what it will be included by selecting that element.

XML Schema 1.1 Support

Oxygen improves the XML Schema 1.1 support, extending most of the XML Schema features to include XML Schema 1.1 capabilities. The XML Schema 1.1 support can be enabled from Options / Preferences / XML / XML Parser / XML Schema.

XML Documents Validation and Content Completion Assistance Based on XML Schema 1.1

The validation and Content Completion Assistant is available when editing XML documents against the XML Schema 1.1 schemas.

XML Schema Validation and Content Completion Assistance

The validation and Content Completion Assistant is available when editing XML Schema 1.1 files in the Text mode.

Flatten Schema

The Flatten Schema action was updated to support XML Schema 1.1.

Resource Hierarchy/Dependencies and Refactoring Actions

The Resource Hierarchy/Dependencies view, Component Dependencies, and the Search and Refactoring actions were updated to support XML Schema 1.1.

Schema Model View

The Model view provides XML Schema 1.1-related information for elements and attributes of the edited document (open content, wildcards, type alternatives, etc.)

Master Files

The Master Files support was updated to handle also XML Schema 1.1 schemas.

XML Schema 1.1 Support Limitations

Editing XML Schema 1.1 files in the Schema Design mode does not present XML Schema 1.1 specific components
Generating XML Schema Documentation does not handle XML Schema 1.1 specific components
The support for generating XML instances based on XML Schema ignores XML Schema 1.1 specific components

Huge XML Files Support

Work with Huge XML Files

Oxygen XML provides support for opening and editing huge XML files (multi GByte files). The huge files support is generally limited to simple editing plus some useful actions such as Find, Validate on Request, and Spell Checking.

Eclipse Plugin

Support for Eclipse 4.2 (Juno)

The Oxygen XML Eclipse plugin now supports Eclipse 4.2, in addition to the previously supported versions of Eclipse (3.4 - 3.7).

Other

Multi-Monitor Editing Support

You can drag edited files outside the main application window to expand your working area, allowing you to take full advantage of multiple monitors.

Support for Importing XLSX Documents

Importing MS Excel documents is now supported.

More Flexible Quick Find

Quick Find was enhanced to be supported in all text components.

SVN Client

Support for SVN 1.7

The embedded SVN Client supports SVN 1.7.5, allowing you to take advantage of the latest SVN improvements and fixes. Previous SVN versions and older working copies are also supported. SVN 1.7 working copies can be easily identified by the information in the status bar.

Extended Support for Exporting Files

The support for exporting files from a repository was also made available in the Repositories and Revision Graph views. In the Repositories view it is now possible to export both directories and individual files.

Full Support for "svn add"

The "svn add" command and all its options are fully supported. The resources not under version control are collected automatically from any directory of a working copy.

Improved Handling of Unversioned and Ignored Directories

Processing content of unversioned or ignored directories can be avoided using options added in the Working Copy view. The SVN Client can be configured to ignore content of such directories, speeding up the loading of a working copy as well as other SVN operations.

Working Copy Data and Improved Representation

The local modification time of files and the local revision of any working copy item were added in the Working Copy view. Other changes include dimmed rendering of ignored resources and improved sorting speed of working copy data.

Improvements and Bug Fixes

This version includes various improvements and bug fixes, such as corrections regarding the states and types of the working copy items, speed improvements on loading the working copy information, caching and auto-refreshing, and many others.

Updated Components

Support for Xerces Version 2.11.0

The Xerces validation engine was upgraded to version 2.11.0.

Support for Saxon Version 9.4.0.4

The Saxon processor was upgraded to version 9.4.0.4.

Support for MarkLogic 6

Oxygen has been updated to work with MarkLogic 6.

Extended API

A detailed list of all changes to the Java API can be found here.

Oxygen SDK Mailing List

Join the Oxygen developers community! You can use the oXygen-sdk list to stay up-to-date with the latest API changes, discuss issues and find solutions from developers working with the Plugins, Author Component or Author SDK.

Use Your Own Controls for Editing Attributes and Simple Element Values in the Author Mode

If the predefined controls are not enough, the package ro.sync.ecss.extensions.api.editor contains the API necessary to build your custom form-based editors for attribute and text values in the Author mode. To get you started the Java sources for the SimpleURLChooserEditor are available in the Author SDK.

Added JUnit Base Class API for Testing Plugins and Frameworks

The base class PluginWorkspaceTCBase can be used to construct automated JUnit tests for your custom plugins and frameworks. More information is available in the user manual.

Added Predefined Operations for Modifying Author Nodes Using XSLT or XQuery

The predefined operations ro.sync.ecss.extensions.commons.operations.XSLTOperation and ro.sync.ecss.extensions.commons.operations.XQueryOperation can be used in your custom actions to modify the XML content in the Author mode. This make possible to create custom actions with no Java knowledge by just providing XSLT or XQuery scripts.

Ability to Construct a Toolbar with All Actions Defined at Framework Level in the Author Component

The AuthorComponentProvider.createExtensionActionsToolbars() API gives you the possibility to construct a toolbar with all the actions defined at framework level in exactly the same order in which they have been added to the toolbars from the Document Type Edit dialog box.

Ability to Navigate Through the Document

The WSAuthorEditorPageBase.goToNextEditablePosition(int) method allows you to jump to the next editable position, similarly to using the TAB key.

The WSAuthorEditorPageBase.editAttribute(AuthorElement,String) method allows you to identify an in-place editor for the given attribute and edit it.

Check if a Certain Page is Editable

The WSTextBasedEditorPage.isEditable() method allows you to check if a certain page is editable.

Working with Highlights and Change Tracking

The AuthorPersistentHighlighter.canAddHighlight(int,int) method allows you to check if a custom highlight can be added between certain offsets.

The AuthorPersistentHighlighter.getHighlights(int,int), AuthorReviewController.getCommentHighlights(int,int) and AuthorChangeTrackingController.getChangeHighlights(int,int) methods allows you to find all highlights for a certain type intersecting a certain offset range.

The AuthorChangeTrackingController.accept() and AuthorChangeTrackingController.reject() methods allows you to accept or reject changes either individually or in a certain range.

Add Pop-up Menu Customizer in the Text Mode

The WSTextEditorPage.addPopUpMenuCustomizer(TextPopupMenuCustomizer) method allows you to set a pop-up menu customizer for the Text mode.

Allow Author Access from the Plugin Side

The WSAuthorEditorPage.getAuthorAccess() method allows you to obtain the AuthorAccess API from an WSAuthorEditorPage. This is useful if you want to write utility methods used both in a framework and in a plugin.

Access Information About the Data Sources Configured in the Application

The Workspace.getDataSourceAccess() method allows you to obtain information about the various database or remote connections which have been configured in the preferences by the user.

Eclipse Extension-Point for Customizing the Main and the Internal Author Toolbar

The extension point com.oxygenxml.editor.actionBarContributorCustomizer in your custom plugin can return an ActionBarContributorCustomizer implementation which can filter items added to the main toolbar and to the internal Author toolbar.

Display Validation Problems List in the Author Component

Using the existing ValidationProblemsFilter API and the WSTextBasedEditorPage.getStartEndOffsets(DocumentPositionedInfo) API the Author Component sample can also display a list with all validation problems found in the XML document.

Scroll Author Mode to a Specific Area

Added possibility to make a specific area of the Author mode visible using the WSAuthorEditorPageBase.scrollToRectangle(Rectangle) method

XML Editor