What's New in Oxygen XML Webhelp 18.1

October 18, 2016

Oxygen XML WebHelp version 18.1 is a maintenance release that includes new features and improvements to help make the WebHelp publishing experience even more enjoyable and the responsive output even more customizable and visually appealing.

The responsive WebHelp system received numerous updates, including new skins, support for expanding/collapsing components (sections, tables, etc.), automatic image scaling, support for DITA 1.3-specific context sensitive help information, and control over what is indexed for searches.

WebHelp

New Skins Added to the WebHelp Responsive System

Some creative new skins were added to the WebHelp Responsive system for both tree and tile variants of the templates. For example, there are new skins called Aqua Marine, Ashes, Hightech, and Sky that were added to the growing list of predefined skins.

Added Expand/Collapse Functionality in the WebHelp Responsive Output

The HTML content generated for the DITA sections, tables, topics, or other components is now collapsible or expandable, allowing you to easily navigate through the DITA topic content.

XSLT Extension Points for the DITA-OT WebHelp Plugin

The DITA-OT WebHelp plugin exposes two XSLT extension points that allow you to override the XSLT stylesheets that generates the WebHelp HTML pages. This allows you to customize the WebHelp output without changing the resources within the WebHelp plugin.

Context Sensitive WebHelp was Updated for DITA 1.3

The Context Sensitive WebHelp system was updated to support the new changes from DITA 1.3 specifications. For example, you can now associate a topic with an application by using the @appid and @appname attributes available on the resourceid element.

New Template Components Were Added for WebHelp Responsive DITA Output

The WebHelp Responsive template mechanism received two new components. One for related links and another for child links. This improvement allows you to hide or move these components anywhere in the layout.

Exclude Content from the WebHelp Search Indexer

The WebHelp Search Indexer can now be customized to exclude topics from the indexing process through various methods. You can do so by using a WebHelp transformation parameter or in the DITA map by setting the @search attribute to "no".

Images are Automatically Scaled in WebHelp Responsive Output

Improvements were made to image rendering in the output of WebHelp Responsive layouts. The width of images in topic pages now automatically adapt to the size of the screen.