What's New in Oxygen XML Editor 22.1

May 19, 2020

Version 22.1 of the Oxygen XML Editor brings you more productivity improvements for DITA authoring, customization options and change bars for CSS-based DITA to PDF publishing, the JSON and HTML editing support continued to be enhanced, while some of the most popular add-ons were improved and new ones made available.

Other highlights include the ability to copy content from Author mode and paste it in HTML-aware tools while preserving the styling, the availability of the visual file comparison tool in the Eclipse plugin distributions, better search and replace functionality, and as usual, this release comes with various API additions, bug fixes, and component updates.

DITA Authoring

Improved Navigation on Links and Topic References

DITA projects usually consist of lots of topics and maps with numerous references between them. To allow you to easily navigate to the target of a reference, when you press Ctrl or Command (on OS X), the links and topic references become hyperlinks in Author mode, so you can click on them to reach the target location, thus making navigation very easy.

Automate Keys Definitions on Inserting Topic References

If you use DITA keys and want to make all references via keys, you need to have key definitions for all topic references. A new option is available in the DITA > New Topics preferences page called Use the file name as the value of the "keys" attribute for topic references. If selected, when inserting a topic reference into a map, the file name will be used automatically as the value of the @keys attribute for the new <topicref>, thus defining a key pointing to the inserted topic that can be used to make indirect references to that topic.

Create New DITA Map Directly From the DITA Maps Manager

A new action available from the DITA Maps Manager toolbar allows you to create a new DITA map document by opening the New Document Wizard that assists you with the creation process.

Import Profiling Styles from DITAVAL

If a DITAVAL filter already contains styles then you can easily use them during authoring by importing them. Just go to the Profiling/Conditional Text > Colors and Styles preferences page and press the Import from DITAVAL button to import profiling styles from a .ditaval file to either merge new profiling styles with existing ones or to replace them completely. This feature also works if you are using profiling attribute groups to organize the attributes into subcategories.

Conref Range Support when Creating Reusable Components

Prior to version 22.1, the Create Reusable Component action replaced a selection of elements with a content reference (conref) if the Replace selection with content reference option was selected in the resulting dialog box. Starting with version 22.1, the selection is replaced with a content reference range (conref and conrefend).

The Oxygen DITA References View Plugin is Easier to Install

The DITA References side view shows all outgoing references for the current DITA topic. This view is contributed by an Oxygen plugin, and now the Window > Show View menu contains an entry with its name, even when the DITA References View add-on is not installed. The first time you select it from that menu, Oxygen will automatically open a dialog box to help you install the add-on.

CSS-Based DITA to PDF Publishing

Improved Error Reporting

When publishing to CSS-based PDF output, errors detected by the Chemistry processor are now reported in the Results panel along with the other DITA-related errors. The additional types of errors include font issues, text bleeding, and more.

Show Tracked Changes and Comments as Change Bars

A new parameter called show.changes.and.comments.as.changebars can be used to control whether or not tracked changes and comments are shown as change bars in the PDF output. When the parameter is set to yes (default) and the show.changes.and.comments parameter is also set to yes, the comments and tracked changes are shown as change bars.

Show Change Tracking Content as Sticky Note Annotations

A new parameter called show.changed.text.in.pdf.sticky.notes.content is available for controlling what information about tracked changes is presented as sticky note annotations. If it is set to yes, the content of insertion or deletion changes is shown in the annotation, while only the inserted and deleted labels are shown if the parameter is set to no.

Control the Title Rendering for Tables

Two new parameters were added for CSS-based PDF transformations that control how table titles are presented. The table.title.placement parameter can be used to control whether the title appears at the top or bottom of the table, and the table.title.repeat parameter can be used to specify whether or not the table caption should be repeated when the table spans on multiple pages.

Control Embedded SVG Customization

The rendering of an SVG (which is basically an XML) can be customized with CSS. A new parameter called use.css.for.embedded.svg can be used to specify whether or not custom CSS is applied to embedded SVG elements in CSS-based PDF transformations.

Improved Line Breaks Handling in Codeblocks

break-word is now the default value of the overflow-wrap CSS property for <codeblock> elements. This will help prevent problems with content in code blocks bleeding off the page.

Better Support for Hyphenated and Wrapped Words on Search and Copy/Paste

The behavior of search and copy/paste operations for hyphenated and wrapped text now takes all spaces into account, helping to prevent unwanted word combinations.

Improved Handling of Change Bars

Duplicate change bars painted on parent and child blocks have been removed. Change bars are also placed in better locations within the page, avoiding text overlaps.

Visual Editing

Copy/Paste From Author Mode as HTML

When you copy content from Author mode and paste it in HTML-aware tools (like email clients, office applications, Google Docs, etc.) Oxygen tries to preserve the overall styles such as links, lists, tables, bold, italic, underline, etc.

CSS Property to Control Hyperlinks Activation in Author Mode

A new -oxy-link-activation-trigger CSS property can be used to specify when links can be followed to their target as hyperlinks in Author mode. This allows you to control if link navigation happens directly when clicking a link or when using a modifier (by pressing Ctrl or Command on OS X and then click to navigate to the link target). The second is particularly useful when you may need to edit the link itself and clicking without a modifier will allow you to place the caret inside the link element.

Visual Comparison for Eclipse

Compare XML Documents in the Visual Author Mode

The Oxygen Eclipse plugin now provides support to compare XML documents in the visual Author mode. This makes it easier to understand the document changes. This new visual mode includes unique features such as actions to control the tags display mode, the ability to do second-level comparisons to see the actual changes inside modified blocks, and it handles nicely the change tracking markup.

Eclipse Integration

The Oxygen visual Author mode comparison is integrated with the Eclipse comparison support. The visual comparison is presented automatically for XML documents. You can compare versions in the Workbench with versions in the repository, or with the local edit history. You can also compare three files when a common ancestor exists.

Merge Changes

The Oxygen visual Author mode comparison editor provides similar merge support as the default Eclipse compare editor. It allows you to merge changes from the left file to the right file, and vice versa. You can copy each individual change or you can use actions such as Copy all non-conflicting changes to copy more changes at once.

Comparison Options

The comparison solution includes a set of diff options. It includes an XML Accurate algorithm for precise comparisons, an XML Fast algorithm for speed and less memory usage at the expense of some accuracy, or you can specify whether or not namespaces, prefixes, namespace declarations, or even the order of attributes should be ignored.

HTML

Validate HTML Documents Using Schematron

It is now possible to validate HTML documents against a Schematron schema. Besides the default HTML validator, Oxygen now also includes a built-in HTML Schematron Validator engine. This can be done by specifying the Schematron in a validation scenario, using the Validate with action (in the Validation drop-down menu on the toolbar), or you can batch validate multiple HTML documents using the Validate with schema contextual menu action from the Project view.

Action to Make HTML Documents XML Well-formed

A new HTML to XML Well-formed action is available in the contextual menu when editing HTML documents. It makes the currently edited HTML document to be XML well-formed. This is helpful if, for example, you use XSLT stylesheets while applying transformations on HTML documents (since the transformation will require the HTML document to be XML well-formed).

Format and Indent HTML Elements

Support was added to format and indent the content of the current HTML element. After the action is performed, the structure of the document will be preserved as is (including, for example, unclosed elements or missing attribute quotes).

CSS

Emmet Plug-in Works on CSS/LESS Files

The Oxygen Emmet add-on provides high-speed coding and editing via a content assistance mechanism. It was already supported for HTML, XSL, and XML formats, and now it can be used also for CSS and LESS files. For details, see: Oxygen Emmet Plugin.

JSON

Improved XSD to JSON Schema Conversion

The XSD to JSON Schema Converter tool was improved to handle better name conversions. For example, improved naming conversions when underscores or camel-case names are used.

JSON Improvements

Various other improvements were added for JSON support. Noteworthy items are:

Better indentation when generating JSON content.
The Generate Sample JSON Files action provides better support for date-time, time, email, and ipv6 formats.
JSON Schema draft-08 declarations are handled, allowing users to edit and validate them in draft-07 compatibility mode.

Add-ons

Oxygen provides access to a variety of default add-ons that extend the functionality of the application.

Generate Java Classes from XSD

Oxygen now includes a very handy tool for generating Java classes from an XML Schema (XSD) file. The Generate Java classes from XSD action is found in the Tools menu and it will generate the Java class files inside a new package located in a specified output folder. This functionality is provided as an add-on and it is installed automatically the first time you invoke the action.

Oxygen Emmet Plugin Improvements

The Emmet Plugin is now installed automatically the first time you invoke the Emmet action. To help make expanding the abbreviations easier, you can now use the Ctrl+Space keyboard shortcut. Also, the Wrap with Abbreviation action now displays an in-place field where you can type the abbreviation.

Improved Filtering Comment Mapping for Oxygen Feedback Plugin

The Feedback Comments Manager view can filter comments by site, version, and status. This makes it easier for you to focus on particular comments (e.g. unresolved comments, or a particular version or site). The mapping of the comments to DITA topics was improved to support DITA-specific features such as branch filtering and chunking.

Install on First Use for the Git Client

The Git Client plugin now offers the Git Staging view that acts as a basic Git client integrated directly into Oxygen. It provides support for committing changes to a Git repository, comparing and merging changes, and other Git-specific commands. This view is now listed in the Window > Show View menu and the Tools menu even when the Git Client add-on is not installed, making it easier to perform the installation, as that is triggered automatically when one of these actions is invoked.

Install on First Use for the Batch Document Converter

The Batch Converter add-on contributes numerous actions in a Batch Converter submenu located in the Tools menu and the contextual menu of resources in the Project view. These actions allow for batch conversions between various formats (MS Word, MS Excel, HTML, JSON, and Markdown documents to DITA, DocBook, XHTML, or XML). If the add-on is not already installed, selecting Batch Converter will trigger the installation process for this plugin.

XSpec Add-on Updated to Support XSpec Version 1.6.0

The XSpec add-on was updated to include XSpec version 1.6.0, which is the same version that is now bundled with Oxygen.

Saxon Transformer Add-on for Saxon 10.0

The Saxon transformer add-on now supports Saxon version 10.0.

Other

Movable Results View

The Results view that displays messages generated from various operations like validations, transformations, or search can now be moved to your desired UI location alongside other side views and you can also set it to be hidden automatically when not focused.

Validation Status Details

When a validation operation is processed, information about the validation scenario is displayed in the stripe at the very bottom of the application. If you hover over the information, a tooltip is presented with even more information. You can also click the More details button to open the Information view where further details about the validation are displayed.

Locate Find/Replace in Files Matches in the Author Visual Editing Mode

The Find/Replace in Files dialog box now has a new option (Always open selected results in Text mode):

If unselected (the default state), double-clicking the resulted matches will open the documents in whatever editing mode is specified as the default for that document type. For example, DITA documents will open by default in Author mode.
If selected, double-clicking the resulted matches will always open the documents in Text mode (even if the particular document type is set to open in Author mode by default).

Locate Find/Replace in Files Matches in the Author Visual Editing Mode

Ignore Extra Whitespaces Option Added to the Find/Replace Dialog Box

The Ignore extra whitespaces option was added in the Find/Replace dialog box. It is helpful when searching for space-separated words because enabling this option means that line-breaks and indentation between words will not affect the results.

Hide Editor Tabs

If you want full focus on the current file, or during some presentations, you may find it useful that now it is possible to hide all the file tabs to only display the currently open file. This does not close the other tabs, just hides them. You can still navigate between tabs using keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+Tab, Ctrl+Shift+Tab, Ctrl+F6, Ctrl+Shift+F6).

New Option to Specify an External Application for Editing MathML

A new option was added in the MathML preferences page where you can specify an external MathML application for editing MathML equations. For example, the following command could be used to edit MathML equations with a Libre Office application in Windows:

"C:\Program Files\LibreOffice 5\program\smath.exe"
            "${cf}"

New Option to Specify an External Application for Editing MathML

API

Get Names of Pseudo-Classes Set for an Element

The AuthorElement.getPseudoClassNames() method was added and it can be used to retrieve the names of the pseudo-classes set on an element.

Customize Link Tooltip Text in Author Mode

The ExtensionsBundle.customizeLinkTooltipDescription() method was added and it can be used to customize the tooltip description that is displayed when hovering over a link in the Author editing mode.

Load XML Content and Use the Author API to Make Changes

The PluginWorkspace.createAuthorDocumentProvider(URL, Reader) API can be used to create a provider for a given resource specified by a URL and/or Reader. The provider creates a structure of AuthorNodes and allows it to be manipulated via an AuthorDocumentController interface. This API is useful if, for example, you want to load XML content and use the Author API to make changes to it.

Run Validation Scenarios from Custom Author Actions

Two new APIs were added that can be used to run validation scenarios in particular situations. The ExecuteValidationScenariosOperation API can be used to run a validation scenario on an Author Action file, while the ValidationScenarioInvoker API can be used to run a validation scenario from a plugin or framework customization.

Contribute Code Templates for Fast Structure Insertions

A new WSTextEditorPage.addExternalContentCompletionProvide API can be used to display additional code template proposals in the content completion assistant.

Change the Tooltips for Filters in the File Comparison Merge Tool

A new DiffAndMergeTools.openMergeApplication API can be used to control the text presented in a tooltip when you hover over the filtering options in the file comparison merge tool.

Component Updates

DITA Open Toolkit 3.4.1

The DITA Open Toolkit version bundled with Oxygen was updated to 3.4.1.

DITA Open Toolkit Plugin for DITA-to-Word 1.4.0

The DITA Open Toolkit plugin for DITA-to-Word conversions was updated to version 1.4.0.

Saxon 9.9.1.7

Updated the Saxon library that is distributed with Oxygen to version 9.9.1.7.

Xerces 2.12.1

Updated the Apache Xerces library to version 2.12.1.

Everit 1.12.1

The Everit library was updated to version 1.12.1.

MarkLogic 10

Oxygen has been tested and is officially compatible with the MarkLogic 10 server.

TEI Schemas 4.0.0 and TEI Stylesheets 7.49

Updated the bundled TEI schemas to version 4.0.0 and the TEI stylesheets to version 7.49.

focheck 0.7.6

The bundled focheck framework that is used for enhanced XSL-FO validation was updated to version 0.7.6.

Log4j 2.13

Updated the log4j library to version 2.13.

Rhino 1.7.12

The Rhino library was updated to version 1.7.12.

Eclipse 4.15

Updated the Eclipse plugin to support version 4.15. Note that starting with Oxygen version 23, Eclipse versions earlier than 4.4 will no longer be supported.

XSpec 1.6.0

Updated the XSpec library to version 1.6.

XML Editor