Re: [XXE] track changes in XXE and .pdf
On 06/23/2016 11:16 AM, Grundtvig Nielsen Niels wrote: Still on 6.6.0, intending to upgrade to 7.0 as soon as I get a quiet moment ... I thought I'd fully understood how to have visible tracked changes using the standard "status" attribute, but I've obviously forgotten something. I've started by re-reading http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_distrib/doc/profiling/index.html, and can now: * use a .profiles file Topic > Conditional processing > Select profile > Conditional processing profiles to have visible feedback on "status" while editing. * alternatively, I can specify a .ditaval file Topic > Conditional processing > Select profile > Use .ditaval file and have visible tracked changes in the .pdf I'm sorry but I don't understand. I can just say in case it can help that all the documentation including: XMLmind XML Editor - Easy Profiling http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_distrib/doc/profiling/index.html and all the tutorials, including: Conditional processing made easy http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_tutorial/easy_profiling/index.html currently on line apply to XMLmind XML|DITA|DocBook|XHTML Editor v7 and not to v6 anymore. You have a local copy of XMLmind XML Editor v6.6 on your computer. You can access simply by selecting menu item "Help|Full Documentation Set". Please refer to this local copy and not to what's found in http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/documentation.html. What I've forgotten is how to be greedy and have visible change-tracking both on screen in XXE and in the generated .pdf. I've added a reference to our earlier exchange of mails on this topic, in case it helps. In v7, the procedure is: 1) Create a .profiles file. Let's call it "status.profiles". (Forget about .ditaval files. These will be automatically generated behind the scene by XXE.) 2) In this profiles file, a) Specify the possible values of the "status" attribute (e.g. "deleted", "changed", "new") and give a distinctive style to each "status" value. b) Add a single "dummy" profile. Let's call it "HighlightStatus". This dummy profile uses the "status" attribute and allows all its possible values. See attached screenshot. 3) Open your map and use "Map|Conditional Processing|Select Profile" to associate the "status.profiles" file and its single profile "HighlightStatus" to your map. 4) Check "Tools|Use as Master Document". This is done once for all. From now, the elements having a "status" attribute found in the map or in any of its topics will be given a distinctive style on screen AND this will be also the case in the generated WebHelp, PDF, etc. In v6, same procedure without step #4 (no "Tools|Use as Master Document" in v6). But v6 requires you to always open a topic from its map (e.g. double click the topicref). With v7, once "Use as Master Document" is checked, the topic inherits the profile of its map no matter how this topic has been opened (double click the topicref, File|Open, etc) among many other useful things. -- XMLmind XML Editor Support List xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com http://www.xmlmind.com/mailman/listinfo/xmleditor-support
[XXE] track changes in XXE and .pdf
Still on 6.6.0, intending to upgrade to 7.0 as soon as I get a quiet moment ... I thought I'd fully understood how to have visible tracked changes using the standard "status" attribute, but I've obviously forgotten something. I've started by re-reading http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_distrib/doc/profiling/index.html, and can now: * use a .profiles file Topic > Conditional processing > Select profile > Conditional processing profiles to have visible feedback on "status" while editing. * alternatively, I can specify a .ditaval file Topic > Conditional processing > Select profile > Use .ditaval file and have visible tracked changes in the .pdf What I've forgotten is how to be greedy and have visible change-tracking both on screen in XXE and in the generated .pdf. I've added a reference to our earlier exchange of mails on this topic, in case it helps. N -Original Message- From: Hussein Shafie [mailto:huss...@xmlmind.com] Sent: vrijdag 25 december 2015 12:00 To: Grundtvig Nielsen Niels Cc: 'xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com' Subject: Re: [XXE] streamlined track-changes [THE REAL ANSWER] * Worldline SA/NV - Chaussee de Haecht 1442 Haachtsesteenweg - 1130 Brussels - Belgium RPM-RPR Bruxelles-Brussel - TVA-BTW BE 0418.547.872 Bankrekening-Compte Bancaire-Bank Account 310-0269424-44 BIC BBRUBEBB - IBAN BE55 3100 2694 2444 "The information contained in this e-mail and any attachment there to be confidential and may contain information which is protected by intellectual property rights. This information is intended for the exclusive use of the recipient(s) named above. This e-mail does not constitute any binding relationship or offer toward any of the addressees. If you are not one of the addressees , one of their employees or a proxy holder entitled to hand over this message to the addressee(s), any use of the information contained herein (e.g. reproduction, divulgation, communication or distribution,...) is prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender and destroy it immediately after. The integrity and security of this message cannot be guaranteed and it may be subject to data corruption, interception and unauthorized amendment, for which we accept no liability." -- XMLmind XML Editor Support List xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com http://www.xmlmind.com/mailman/listinfo/xmleditor-support
Re: [XXE] Track changes
On 08/05/2015 10:44 AM, n...@kbss27.be wrote: Excellent! thanks again for keeping me posted; I have now succesfully used both status values and product values to give neatly coloured output, and it is a major step forward for me. One observation, though, after checking http://www.xmlmind.com/ditac/_distrib/doc/manual/limitations.html#limitations__flagging_contents *Flagging contents* Only the following elements (and, of course, their specializations) can be flagged: topic, p, lq, note, dl, ul, ol, sl, pre, lines, fig, object, table, simpletable, section, example, ph, term, xref, cite, q, boolean, state, keyword, tm, image, foreign. Clear and unambiguous, of course … but I've noticed, when considering my non-DITA documents with conditional text for product variants, that it has been useful to apply conditions to dlentry and to li. Any chance the list of supported elements might be extended in the future? We don't know. For now, we haven't found a simple and elegant way to flag elements such as list items, table rows, table cells, etc. I could imagine using something like liph, though I suspect this would not colour the bullet character, but don't see any easy way of tagging a single dlentry ps] compromise – the output is visually acceptable if I string several dl together, though this does of course interfere with the structural logic ;-} -- XMLmind XML Editor Support List xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com http://www.xmlmind.com/mailman/listinfo/xmleditor-support
Re: [XXE] Track changes
Excellent! thanks again for keeping me posted; I have now succesfully used both status values and product values to give neatly coloured output, and it is a major step forward for me. One observation, though, after checking http://www.xmlmind.com/ditac/_distrib/doc/manual/limitations.html#limitations__flagging_contents Flagging contents Only the following elements (and, of course, their specializations) can be flagged: topic, p, lq, note, dl, ul, ol, sl, pre, lines, fig, object, table, simpletable, section, example, ph, term, xref, cite, q, boolean, state, keyword, tm, image, foreign. Clear and unambiguous, of course … but I've noticed, when considering my non-DITA documents with conditional text for product variants, that it has been useful to apply conditions to dlentry and to li. Any chance the list of supported elements might be extended in the future? I could imagine using something like liph, though I suspect this would not colour the bullet character, but don't see any easy way of tagging a single dlentry N -- XMLmind XML Editor Support List xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com http://www.xmlmind.com/mailman/listinfo/xmleditor-support
Re: [XXE] Track changes
[ps] compromise – the output is visually acceptable if I string several dl together, though this does of course interfere with the structural logic ;-} -- XMLmind XML Editor Support List xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com http://www.xmlmind.com/mailman/listinfo/xmleditor-support
Re: [XXE] Track changes
Thanks for taking the trouble to let me know! I'll explore this new-to-me option with interest. N On 30 July 2015, Hussein Shafie huss...@xmlmind.com wrote: On 06/30/2015 09:13 AM, n...@kbss27.be wrote: My real requirement for tracking changes in XXE, as I mentioned before, is to be able to use the DITA status attribute to drive output formatting: to highlight differences in a new version of a publication, I want to be able to say (for instance) any content tagged with status='new' is output in green. As far as I remember, this wasn't possible out of the box last time I asked; I'd have to roll up my sleeves and tussle with xslt. * is this still the case? * is there any chance colour-coding based on attribute values might be built in in a future version of XXE? In fact, you don't need to customize our DITA XSLT stylesheets for that. This can be implemented by creating a simple .ditaval file and passing it to XMLmind DITA Converter, the DITA processor embedded in XMLmind XML Editor. This process is explained here: Flagging contents http://www.xmlmind.com/ditac/_distrib/doc/manual/limitations.html#limitations__flagging_contents When using XMLmind XML Editor, the .ditaval filter is passed to XMLmind DITA Converter as explained here: Conditional Processing Profile http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_distrib/doc/dita/help-2.html#map_menu Note that the feature you need exists since several years. It's not a feature added to XMLmind DITA Converter v2.5.6 (which has been released today). However, section Flagging contents is indeed new to XMLmind DITA Converter v2.5.6 and was not found in our older documentation. -- XMLmind XML Editor Support List xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com http://www.xmlmind.com/mailman/listinfo/xmleditor-support
Re: [XXE] Track changes
On 06/30/2015 09:13 AM, n...@kbss27.be wrote: My real requirement for tracking changes in XXE, as I mentioned before, is to be able to use the DITA status attribute to drive output formatting: to highlight differences in a new version of a publication, I want to be able to say (for instance) any content tagged with status='new' is output in green. As far as I remember, this wasn't possible out of the box last time I asked; I'd have to roll up my sleeves and tussle with xslt. * is this still the case? * is there any chance colour-coding based on attribute values might be built in in a future version of XXE? In fact, you don't need to customize our DITA XSLT stylesheets for that. This can be implemented by creating a simple .ditaval file and passing it to XMLmind DITA Converter, the DITA processor embedded in XMLmind XML Editor. This process is explained here: Flagging contents http://www.xmlmind.com/ditac/_distrib/doc/manual/limitations.html#limitations__flagging_contents When using XMLmind XML Editor, the .ditaval filter is passed to XMLmind DITA Converter as explained here: Conditional Processing Profile http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_distrib/doc/dita/help-2.html#map_menu Note that the feature you need exists since several years. It's not a feature added to XMLmind DITA Converter v2.5.6 (which has been released today). However, section Flagging contents is indeed new to XMLmind DITA Converter v2.5.6 and was not found in our older documentation. -- XMLmind XML Editor Support List xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com http://www.xmlmind.com/mailman/listinfo/xmleditor-support
Re: [XXE] Track changes
Thank-you very much! I'll wait until my new laptop has been delivered and I have my XML Mind up to date, then enthusiastically experiment. It will be a real help to me to be able to use the status attribute to highlight changes between published versions. On 30 June 2015, Hussein Shafie huss...@xmlmind.com wrote: My real requirement for tracking changes in XXE, as I mentioned before, is to be able to use the DITA status attribute to drive output formatting: to highlight differences in a new version of a publication, I want to be able to say (for instance) any content tagged with status='new' is output in green. As far as I remember, this wasn't possible out of the box last time I asked; I'd have to roll up my sleeves and tussle with xslt. * is this still the case? No. * is there any chance colour-coding based on attribute values might be built in in a future version of XXE? Yes. Note that your feature request is not related to change tracking, nor to XMLmind XML Editor. You simply want XMLmind DITA Converter (http://www.xmlmind.com/ditac/), the DITA processor which happens to be embedded in XMLmind XML Editor, to render the status attribute. http://docs.oasis-open.org/dita/v1.2/os/spec/common/select-atts.html --- PS: Using the Easy Profiling add-on (installed by default), XMLmind XML Editor can render the status attribute on *screen*. See attached screenshot. See attached status.profiles, which specifies how to render the new and deleted values of the status attribute. Tutorial: http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_tutorial/easy_profiling/index.html -- XMLmind XML Editor Support List xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com http://www.xmlmind.com/mailman/listinfo/xmleditor-support
Re: [XXE] Track changes
As for track changes in general, I've concluded over the years that simply turning it on in the hope that the software (any software) will produce usable results … doesn't work :-} I prefer to make sure changes are large enough to comprehend, and then mark them by hand with FM conditions or – when I'm slumming it – Word styles. For heavy reviewing, I'll even present beforeand afterin a two-column table; the ease of review makes up for the extra work. My real requirement for tracking changes in XXE, as I mentioned before, is to be able to use the DITA status attribute to drive output formatting: to highlight differences in a new version of a publication, I want to be able to say (for instance) any content tagged with status='new' is output in green. As far as I remember, this wasn't possible out of the box last time I asked; I'd have to roll up my sleeves and tussle with xslt. * is this still the case? * is there any chance colour-coding based on attribute values might be built in in a future version of XXE? On 26 June 2015, Jeff Hooker jeff.hoo...@pmcs.com wrote: Good to know you are still chewing this over. The sheer amount of bloat that collects in a Word document with tracked changes is an indication that Microsoft had a difficult time finding an elegant way of doing this too. -Original Message- From: xmleditor-support-boun...@xmlmind.com [mailto:xmleditor-support-boun...@xmlmind.com] On Behalf Of Hussein Shafie Sent: Friday, June 26, 2015 2:28 AM To: Jeff Hooker Cc: mailto:'xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com' Subject: Re: [XXE] Track changes On 06/26/2015 03:59 AM, Jeff Hooker wrote: Before you throw up your hands and say We've been through this!, please give me just a few lines to present an idea to you. I understand that you think Word-style track changes is unworkable in XMLmind for a number of reasons. Ok, in truth I'm not all that fond of Word-style change tracking either because of all the noise it adds to the authoring window. However, your current Compare Versions feature already has all of the features that I'd like to see in Track Changes, except that it needs two different versions of the document to work. If data that you encoded in processing instructions at the bottom of the file segmented the changes made **by session** The single processing instruction found at the bottom of an XML file where Activate Change Detection (http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_distrib/doc/help/changesMenu.html) has been activated stores just the serial numbers of the elements of the document. Therefore, implementing your idea is more complicated than you think. then you'd be able to compare the document against other versions of itself, and achieve a version of tracked changes that is actually more flexible and useful than Word-style tracked changes could ever be. The fact that an author would need to pause to run a compare in order to see what he'd done is, frankly, a detail. The feature would nicely fill the differencing gap needed during active authoring. Just my opinion. We share your opinion and had more or less the same idea. We would really like to make our Compare Revisions feature (http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_distrib/doc/help/comparePane_primer.html) usable without the need of storing revisions in a document repository. The fact that you also estimate that this would make our Compare Revisions feature more useful encourages us to attempt implementing this idea. This being said, 1) we haven't found a simple and elegant way to implement it yet 2) this new implementation of the Compare Revisions feature is not yet at the top of our TODO list. (We would like to finish implementing DocBook 5.1 support -- http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/addons_doc.html#docbook51_config -- but this also depends on the work of the DocBook committee) -- XMLmind XML Editor Support List xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com http://www.xmlmind.com/mailman/listinfo/xmleditor-support -- XMLmind XML Editor Support List xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com http://www.xmlmind.com/mailman/listinfo/xmleditor-support -- XMLmind XML Editor Support List xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com http://www.xmlmind.com/mailman/listinfo/xmleditor-support
Re: [XXE] Track changes
On 06/30/2015 09:13 AM, n...@kbss27.be wrote: As for track changes in general, I've concluded over the years that simply turning it on in the hope that the software (any software) will produce usable results … doesn't work :-} I prefer to make sure changes are large enough to comprehend, and then mark them by hand with FM conditions or – when I'm slumming it – Word styles. For heavy reviewing, I'll even present /before /and /after /in a two-column table; the ease of review makes up for the extra work. OK. Thank you for your feedback. My real requirement for tracking changes in XXE, as I mentioned before, is to be able to use the DITA status attribute to drive output formatting: to highlight differences in a new version of a publication, I want to be able to say (for instance) any content tagged with status='new' is output in green. As far as I remember, this wasn't possible out of the box last time I asked; I'd have to roll up my sleeves and tussle with xslt. * is this still the case? No. * is there any chance colour-coding based on attribute values might be built in in a future version of XXE? Yes. Note that your feature request is not related to change tracking, nor to XMLmind XML Editor. You simply want XMLmind DITA Converter (http://www.xmlmind.com/ditac/), the DITA processor which happens to be embedded in XMLmind XML Editor, to render the status attribute. http://docs.oasis-open.org/dita/v1.2/os/spec/common/select-atts.html --- PS: Using the Easy Profiling add-on (installed by default), XMLmind XML Editor can render the status attribute on *screen*. See attached screenshot. See attached status.profiles, which specifies how to render the new and deleted values of the status attribute. Tutorial: http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_tutorial/easy_profiling/index.html ?xml version=1.0 encoding=UTF-8? profiles class=com.xmlmind.xmleditext.dita.profiling.DITAProfileSet xmlns=http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/schema/profiling; xmlns:xsi=http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance; xmlns:xs=http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema; xmlns:prf=http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/schema/profiling; xmlns:ns=http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml; attributes attribute name=status value style=color: #33CC00;new/value value style=color: #CC;deleted/value /attribute /attributes profile implementation=status_files/NotUsed.ditaval xml:id=NotUsed description xml:space=preserve/ attribute name=status valuedeleted/value /attribute /profile /profiles -- XMLmind XML Editor Support List xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com http://www.xmlmind.com/mailman/listinfo/xmleditor-support
Re: [XXE] Track changes
Very well defined, Jeff. Hussein and XMLmind: Let me add my +1 voice to this view. Well, there is a huge gap between determining the differences between two different sets of XML (particularly in DITA), and simple tracked changes, and that is even if we ignore the fact that generating XML marked up with differencing information and generating output that reflects the differences as accurately as possible are two very, very different tasks. We use DeltaXML DITA Diff to programmatically compare different sets of XML and mark up the individual files with DITA-compliant change tracking markup; that is NOT the task we would use Track Changes for in XMLmind. We use DeltaXML when we want to generate comprehensive diff’d documents for development teams and customers, and often the document sets run into thousands of pages and have had dozens of engineers touching them, so there’s no way we’re doing this by hand. In-editor track changes are just a way of allowing an author to keep track of the changes made in the current editing session, or in the last few editing sessions; it is author-to-author communication, rather than anything applicable to generating differenced documents. When an engineer enters a topic containing a 1000 row table with a dozen pervasive changes s/he needs to make, it’s very useful to be able to quickly see what you’ve already done when dealing with the inevitable interruptions of the workday. That is the application I see for tracked changes in XMLmind, rather than serving in any way as the basis for differenced output. Jeff. From: n...@kbss27.be [mailto:n...@kbss27.be] Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2015 12:13 AM To: Jeff Hooker Cc: 'xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com' Subject: Re: [XXE] Track changes As for track changes in general, I've concluded over the years that simply turning it on in the hope that the software (any software) will produce usable results … doesn't work :-} I prefer to make sure changes are large enough to comprehend, and then mark them by hand with FM conditions or – when I'm slumming it – Word styles. For heavy reviewing, I'll even present before and after in a two-column table; the ease of review makes up for the extra work. My real requirement for tracking changes in XXE, as I mentioned before, is to be able to use the DITAstatus attribute to drive output formatting: to highlight differences in a new version of a publication, I want to be able to say (for instance) any content tagged with status='new' is output in green. As far as I remember, this wasn't possible out of the box last time I asked; I'd have to roll up my sleeves and tussle with xslt. is this still the case? is there any chance colour-coding based on attribute values might be built in in a future version of XXE? On 26 June 2015, Jeff Hooker jeff.hoo...@pmcs.com mailto:jeff.hoo...@pmcs.com wrote: Good to know you are still chewing this over. The sheer amount of bloat that collects in a Word document with tracked changes is an indication that Microsoft had a difficult time finding an elegant way of doing this too. -Original Message- From: xmleditor-support-boun...@xmlmind.com mailto:xmleditor-support-boun...@xmlmind.com [mailto:xmleditor-support-boun...@xmlmind.com mailto:xmleditor-support-boun...@xmlmind.com] On Behalf Of Hussein Shafie Sent: Friday, June 26, 2015 2:28 AM To: Jeff Hooker Cc: 'xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com mailto:'xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com' Subject: Re: [XXE] Track changes On 06/26/2015 03:59 AM, Jeff Hooker wrote: Before you throw up your hands and say We've been through this!, please give me just a few lines to present an idea to you. I understand that you think Word-style track changes is unworkable in XMLmind for a number of reasons. Ok, in truth I'm not all that fond of Word-style change tracking either because of all the noise it adds to the authoring window. However, your current Compare Versions feature already has all of the features that I'd like to see in Track Changes, except that it needs two different versions of the document to work. If data that you encoded in processing instructions at the bottom of the file segmented the changes made **by session** The single processing instruction found at the bottom of an XML file where Activate Change Detection (http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_distrib/doc/help/changesMenu.html) http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_distrib/doc/help/changesMenu.html) has been activated stores just the serial numbers of the elements of the document. Therefore, implementing your idea is more complicated than you think. then you'd be able to compare the document against other versions of itself, and achieve a version of tracked changes that is actually more flexible and useful than Word-style tracked changes could ever be. The fact that an author would need to pause
Re: [XXE] Track changes
Well, there is a huge gap between determining the differences between two different sets of XML (particularly in DITA), and simple tracked changes, and that is even if we ignore the fact that generating XML marked up with differencing information and generating output that reflects the differences as accurately as possible are two very, very different tasks. We use DeltaXML DITA Diff to programmatically compare different sets of XML and mark up the individual files with DITA-compliant change tracking markup; that is NOT the task we would use Track Changes for in XMLmind. We use DeltaXML when we want to generate comprehensive diff’d documents for development teams and customers, and often the document sets run into thousands of pages and have had dozens of engineers touching them, so there’s no way we’re doing this by hand. In-editor track changes are just a way of allowing an author to keep track of the changes made in the current editing session, or in the last few editing sessions; it is author-to-author communication, rather than anything applicable to generating differenced documents. When an engineer enters a topic containing a 1000 row table with a dozen pervasive changes s/he needs to make, it’s very useful to be able to quickly see what you’ve already done when dealing with the inevitable interruptions of the workday. That is the application I see for tracked changes in XMLmind, rather than serving in any way as the basis for differenced output. Jeff. From: n...@kbss27.be [mailto:n...@kbss27.be] Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2015 12:13 AM To: Jeff Hooker Cc: 'xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com' Subject: Re: [XXE] Track changes As for track changes in general, I've concluded over the years that simply turning it on in the hope that the software (any software) will produce usable results … doesn't work :-} I prefer to make sure changes are large enough to comprehend, and then mark them by hand with FM conditions or – when I'm slumming it – Word styles. For heavy reviewing, I'll even present before and after in a two-column table; the ease of review makes up for the extra work. My real requirement for tracking changes in XXE, as I mentioned before, is to be able to use the DITA status attribute to drive output formatting: to highlight differences in a new version of a publication, I want to be able to say (for instance) any content tagged with status='new' is output in green. As far as I remember, this wasn't possible out of the box last time I asked; I'd have to roll up my sleeves and tussle with xslt. * is this still the case? * is there any chance colour-coding based on attribute values might be built in in a future version of XXE? On 26 June 2015, Jeff Hooker jeff.hoo...@pmcs.commailto:jeff.hoo...@pmcs.com wrote: Good to know you are still chewing this over. The sheer amount of bloat that collects in a Word document with tracked changes is an indication that Microsoft had a difficult time finding an elegant way of doing this too. -Original Message- From: xmleditor-support-boun...@xmlmind.commailto:xmleditor-support-boun...@xmlmind.com [mailto:xmleditor-support-boun...@xmlmind.commailto:xmleditor-support-boun...@xmlmind.com] On Behalf Of Hussein Shafie Sent: Friday, June 26, 2015 2:28 AM To: Jeff Hooker Cc: 'xmleditor-support@xmlmind.commailto:'xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com' Subject: Re: [XXE] Track changes On 06/26/2015 03:59 AM, Jeff Hooker wrote: Before you throw up your hands and say We've been through this!, please give me just a few lines to present an idea to you. I understand that you think Word-style track changes is unworkable in XMLmind for a number of reasons. Ok, in truth I'm not all that fond of Word-style change tracking either because of all the noise it adds to the authoring window. However, your current Compare Versions feature already has all of the features that I'd like to see in Track Changes, except that it needs two different versions of the document to work. If data that you encoded in processing instructions at the bottom of the file segmented the changes made **by session** The single processing instruction found at the bottom of an XML file where Activate Change Detection (http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_distrib/doc/help/changesMenu.html) has been activated stores just the serial numbers of the elements of the document. Therefore, implementing your idea is more complicated than you think. then you'd be able to compare the document against other versions of itself, and achieve a version of tracked changes that is actually more flexible and useful than Word-style tracked changes could ever be. The fact that an author would need to pause to run a compare in order to see what he'd done is, frankly, a detail. The feature would nicely fill the differencing gap needed during active authoring. Just my opinion. We share your opinion and had more or less the same idea. We would really like to make our Compare
[XXE] Track changes
Hello Hussein, Before you throw up your hands and say We've been through this!, please give me just a few lines to present an idea to you. I understand that you think Word-style track changes is unworkable in XMLmind for a number of reasons. Ok, in truth I'm not all that fond of Word-style change tracking either because of all the noise it adds to the authoring window. However, your current Compare Versions feature already has all of the features that I'd like to see in Track Changes, except that it needs two different versions of the document to work. If data that you encoded in processing instructions at the bottom of the file segmented the changes made *by session* then you'd be able to compare the document against other versions of itself, and achieve a version of tracked changes that is actually more flexible and useful than Word-style tracked changes could ever be. The fact that an author would need to pause to run a compare in order to see what he'd done is, frankly, a detail. The feature would nicely fill the differencing gap needed during active authoring. Just my opinion. Cheers, Jeff. -- XMLmind XML Editor Support List xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com http://www.xmlmind.com/mailman/listinfo/xmleditor-support
Re: [XXE] Track changes
Good to know you are still chewing this over. The sheer amount of bloat that collects in a Word document with tracked changes is an indication that Microsoft had a difficult time finding an elegant way of doing this too. -Original Message- From: xmleditor-support-boun...@xmlmind.com [mailto:xmleditor-support-boun...@xmlmind.com] On Behalf Of Hussein Shafie Sent: Friday, June 26, 2015 2:28 AM To: Jeff Hooker Cc: 'xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com' Subject: Re: [XXE] Track changes On 06/26/2015 03:59 AM, Jeff Hooker wrote: Before you throw up your hands and say We've been through this!, please give me just a few lines to present an idea to you. I understand that you think Word-style track changes is unworkable in XMLmind for a number of reasons. Ok, in truth I'm not all that fond of Word-style change tracking either because of all the noise it adds to the authoring window. However, your current Compare Versions feature already has all of the features that I'd like to see in Track Changes, except that it needs two different versions of the document to work. If data that you encoded in processing instructions at the bottom of the file segmented the changes made **by session** The single processing instruction found at the bottom of an XML file where Activate Change Detection (http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_distrib/doc/help/changesMenu.html) has been activated stores just the serial numbers of the elements of the document. Therefore, implementing your idea is more complicated than you think. then you'd be able to compare the document against other versions of itself, and achieve a version of tracked changes that is actually more flexible and useful than Word-style tracked changes could ever be. The fact that an author would need to pause to run a compare in order to see what he'd done is, frankly, a detail. The feature would nicely fill the differencing gap needed during active authoring. Just my opinion. We share your opinion and had more or less the same idea. We would really like to make our Compare Revisions feature (http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_distrib/doc/help/comparePane_primer.html) usable without the need of storing revisions in a document repository. The fact that you also estimate that this would make our Compare Revisions feature more useful encourages us to attempt implementing this idea. This being said, 1) we haven't found a simple and elegant way to implement it yet 2) this new implementation of the Compare Revisions feature is not yet at the top of our TODO list. (We would like to finish implementing DocBook 5.1 support -- http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/addons_doc.html#docbook51_config -- but this also depends on the work of the DocBook committee) -- XMLmind XML Editor Support List xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com http://www.xmlmind.com/mailman/listinfo/xmleditor-support -- XMLmind XML Editor Support List xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com http://www.xmlmind.com/mailman/listinfo/xmleditor-support
Re: [XXE] Track changes
On 06/26/2015 03:59 AM, Jeff Hooker wrote: Before you throw up your hands and say “We’ve been through this!”, please give me just a few lines to present an idea to you. I understand that you think Word-style track changes is unworkable in XMLmind for a number of reasons. Ok, in truth I’m not all that fond of Word-style change tracking either because of all the noise it adds to the authoring window. However, your current “Compare Versions” feature already has all of the features that I’d like to see in “Track Changes”, except that it needs two different versions of the document to work. If data that you encoded in processing instructions at the bottom of the file segmented the changes made **by session** The single processing instruction found at the bottom of an XML file where Activate Change Detection (http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_distrib/doc/help/changesMenu.html) has been activated stores just the serial numbers of the elements of the document. Therefore, implementing your idea is more complicated than you think. then you’d be able to compare the document against other versions of itself, and achieve a version of tracked changes that is actually more flexible and useful than Word-style tracked changes could ever be. The fact that an author would need to pause to run a compare in order to see what he’d done is, frankly, a detail. The feature would nicely fill the differencing gap needed during active authoring. Just my opinion. We share your opinion and had more or less the same idea. We would really like to make our Compare Revisions feature (http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_distrib/doc/help/comparePane_primer.html) usable without the need of storing revisions in a document repository. The fact that you also estimate that this would make our Compare Revisions feature more useful encourages us to attempt implementing this idea. This being said, 1) we haven't found a simple and elegant way to implement it yet 2) this new implementation of the Compare Revisions feature is not yet at the top of our TODO list. (We would like to finish implementing DocBook 5.1 support -- http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/addons_doc.html#docbook51_config -- but this also depends on the work of the DocBook committee) -- XMLmind XML Editor Support List xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com http://www.xmlmind.com/mailman/listinfo/xmleditor-support
[XXE] Track Changes and other things in XXE
Dishaa wrote: I was hoping to see if there are any add-ons to XXE that may make the review mode more effective. Are you aware of any? No, there is no such add-on. On the other hand, I did get to check out XXE Pro edition. There is an option available to insert a comment. This works well for the reviewer who usually enters additional inputs or comments. However, the author who updates these inputs also needs to highlight this updated portion, so that the reviewer does not spend time checking through the entire document during the following iteration. For this I felt selecting the updated portion and choosing a element like remark can render the text in a different color. But the problem is that this can't be changed back to para element. I'm not sure that using comments or remark elements is a good way to track changes. A remark element is an ``inline'' element (i.e. like emphasis). It cannot be converted to a para because these tow elements have incompatible content models. You can easily wrap a mix of plain text and ``inline'' elements to a remark element and then unwrap these to restore the original state. DocBook also has a couple of attribute (revision, revisionflag, etc) which may be used to mark changes. However, elements having these attributes are not properly styled (by pure laziness, because there is no technical problems). Do you have any pointers on how this can be done? I hope i have been clear in explaining the query. Let me know if you need any further clarifications. It is certainly possible to implement a (very) crude change tracking system using a few macros and/or simple commands written in Java[tm] but: [1] Explaining how to do this is out of the scope of this mailing list. [2] I'm not sure your users will be happy with such a crude system.
[XXE] Track Changes and other things in XXE
Hello, I tried to implement this myself some time ago, but I agrese with Hussein's last post. You can quite easily create a macro command to mark e.g. a element added, deleted etc. with appropriate CSS styling as well. You can also wrap portions of text into phrase with a needed revision attribute. But in my opinion the problem arises when you have to deal with the content model of DocBook or any other format which allow many combinations. The macro commands have to be smart enough not to let user wrap text or inline elements which are already marked for revision etc. I created this: - macro for wraping text with appropriate revision atribute using phrase - macro for marking elements with revision atribute - macro for moving between revisionflags using XPath - macro for removing revision flags - macro for accepting / declining revisions You have to explicitly select every element or portion of text and use appropriate command which in case of long documents can be quite time consuming. The solution may be to use a tracking system. Greetings Pavel -Original Message- From: xmleditor-support-boun...@xmlmind.com [mailto:xmleditor-support-bounces at xmlmind.com] On Behalf Of Dishaa Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 9:53 PM To: xmleditor-support at xmlmind.com Subject: [XXE] Track Changes and other things in XXE Hello, I have been evaluating the XMLMind XML Editor to determine its potential as a documentation tool for our organization. The current requirements for using a XML editor are: 1. Need to Single Source 2. Linux Environment Hence, DocBook was chosen as the standard. The next need is evaluating the different XML editors out there. Three names kept coming up: 1. Syntext Serna 2. XXE 3. Oxygen As a technical writer, I would like to spend my time writing, rather than looking into creating XML tags. Therefore, the need for a GUI to type out the content. We have other crucial requirements: 1. View Track Changes and multiple edits by author and different reviewers. 2. Creating templates with ease. 3. Port/migrate old documentation into new templates. 4. Convert to .HTML/.PDF/.RTF easily. Can the helpful members of this community share their knowledge about how XXE stands upto these requirements? Thanking each of you in advance, Dishaa Pinpoint customers http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=48250/*http:/searchmarketing.yahoo.com/arp/s ponsoredsearch_v9.php?o=US2226cmp=Yahooctv=AprNIs=Ys2=EMb=50 who are looking for what you sell. -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.xmlmind.com/pipermail/xmleditor-support/attachments/20070525/1be6e454/attachment.htm
[XXE] XXE: Track Changes and others
Hello, Further to my query yesterday, I would like to add that the two exhaustive reviews on XXE (http://www.hyperwrite.com/features/XMLmind_review.html; http://www.winwriters.com/articles/xmlmind/index.html; and the XXE Guide) did not cover the part about reviewing track changes and some of the other things I have listed in my mail below. I would hugely appreciate a response to my query. I would like to know as much about the tool before I can consider it, as there is a process in place within our organization to access trial versions. I would like to proceed efficiently by having a few solid choices, before I place a request to evaluate the trial copies. Would hugely appreciate a response. Thanks in advance, Dishaa Dishaa dishaag at yahoo.com wrote: Hello, I have been evaluating the XMLMind XML Editor to determine its potential as a documentation tool for our organization. The current requirements for using a XML editor are: 1. Need to Single Source 2. Linux Environment Hence, DocBook was chosen as the standard. The next need is evaluating the different XML editors out there. Three names kept coming up: 1. Syntext Serna 2. XXE 3. Oxygen As a technical writer, I would like to spend my time writing, rather than looking into creating XML tags. Therefore, the need for a GUI to type out the content. We have other crucial requirements: 1. View Track Changes and multiple edits by author and different reviewers. 2. Creating templates with ease. 3. Port/migrate old documentation into new templates. 4. Convert to .HTML/.PDF/.RTF easily. Can the helpful members of this community share their knowledge about how XXE stands upto these requirements? Thanking each of you in advance, Dishaa - Pinpoint customers who are looking for what you sell. - Yahoo! oneSearch: Finally, mobile search that gives answers, not web links. -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.xmlmind.com/pipermail/xmleditor-support/attachments/20070522/2644e401/attachment.htm
[XXE] Track Changes and other things in XXE
Hello, I have been evaluating the XMLMind XML Editor to determine its potential as a documentation tool for our organization. The current requirements for using a XML editor are: 1. Need to Single Source 2. Linux Environment Hence, DocBook was chosen as the standard. The next need is evaluating the different XML editors out there. Three names kept coming up: 1. Syntext Serna 2. XXE 3. Oxygen As a technical writer, I would like to spend my time writing, rather than looking into creating XML tags. Therefore, the need for a GUI to type out the content. We have other crucial requirements: 1. View Track Changes and multiple edits by author and different reviewers. 2. Creating templates with ease. 3. Port/migrate old documentation into new templates. 4. Convert to .HTML/.PDF/.RTF easily. Can the helpful members of this community share their knowledge about how XXE stands upto these requirements? Thanking each of you in advance, Dishaa - Pinpoint customers who are looking for what you sell. -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.xmlmind.com/pipermail/xmleditor-support/attachments/20070521/0154d518/attachment.htm
[XXE] Track Changes Popup Menu/Toolbar
David 'Dox' Shevitz wrote: I understand that Docbook includes a revisionflag attribute that allows you to let others know that content has been added or changed. I was hoping to put together a custom popup menu (or an addition to the default popup menu) and a custom toolbar that allows you to quickly set this flag to a specific value. For example a user right-clicks a para element and has the following options available: Track Changes: Added (sets revisionflag to Added) Track Changes: Changed (sets revisionflag to Changed) Track Changes: Deleted (sets revisionflag to Deleted) It would be particularly useful if the menu had some intelligence behind that detected if only text was selected and, if so, wrap the text in a phrase element so that a flag could be added. I've been reading through the Configuration and Deployment guide, but I think I'm tackling a task that is more than I can handle, because I can't seem to get things to work. Does anyone have any suggestions? Normally DocBook has a context-sensitive Edit popup menu. This popup menu is special if you click on an svg:svg element. I've sacrificied this feature for the sake of making what follows simpler to understand. --- command name=mydocb.setRevision macro undoable=true sequence choice sequence test expression=string-length($selectedChars) gt; 0 / get expression=$selectedChars / !-- Does not select what has been pasted but the caret is inside what has been pasted. -- command name=paste parameter=to lt;?xml version='1.0'?gt;lt;phrasegt;%_lt;/phrasegt;/ /sequence test expression=$implicitElement / /choice sequence set variable=selectedElement expression=$implicitElement / command name=putAttribute parameter=revisionflag %0 / /sequence /sequence /macro /command command name=mydocb.editMenu menu item label=Track Changes: Added (sets revisionflag to added) command=mydocb.setRevision parameter=added / item label=Track Changes: Changed (sets revisionflag to changed) command=mydocb.setRevision parameter=changed / item label=Track Changes: Deleted (sets revisionflag to deleted) command=mydocb.setRevision parameter=deleted / editMenu / /menu /command binding mousePressed button=3/ command name=mydocb.editMenu / /binding --- To test this, simply copy attached file to XXE_user_preferences_dir/config/ (XXE_user_preferences_dir is C:\Document and Settings\user\xxe2\ on Windows and ~/.xxe2/ on Unix). -- next part -- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: mydocbook.xxe Type: text/xml Size: 1645 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.xmlmind.com/pipermail/xmleditor-support/attachments/20050419/874d0df1/attachment.xml
[XXE] Track Changes Popup Menu/Toolbar
Hussein, Thank you very much! This was extremely helpful. While I am at it, thank you for the detailed documentation such as the XMLMind XML Editor - Commands document and the Configuration and Deployment document. They are invaluable. I spent some time last night working on my own menu based on the examples you provided in the Commands documentation. I've pasted it below. It works relatively well (there is are a few behaviors that I can't seem to prevent). I would be very interested in yours or anyone else's opinion. !-- My menu -- command name=contextualMenu macro choice sequence !-- If we have selected text, we need contextualMenu1, which calls macros that wrap the text in a phrase element, then set the revisionFlag attribute. If we are removing markup, this menu calls a macro that removes the phrase element. -- test expression=$selectedChars != '' / command name=contextualMenu1 / /sequence sequence !-- If we have not selected text, we need contextualMenu2, which calls macros that set the revisionFlag attribute. If we are removing markup, this menu calls a macro that tries to convert the selection to a text node. This might work for cases other than phrases, but so far XMLMind won't let you convert something to #text if it will make the document invalid. -- test expression=$selectedChars = '' / command name=contextualMenu2 / /sequence command name=editMenu / /choice /macro /command command name=contextualMenu1 menu item label=C1: Mark as Added command=phraseWithAddedRevision / item label=C1: Mark as Changed command=phraseWithChangedRevision / item label=C1: Mark as Deleted command=phraseWithDeletedRevision / item label=C1: Remove Markup command=removeMarkup / !--item label=C1: Remove Markup command=removeAttribute parameter=revisionflag / -- editMenu / /menu /command command name=contextualMenu2 menu item label=C2: Mark as Added command=addAttribute parameter=revisionflag added / item label=C2: Mark as Changed command=addAttribute parameter=revisionflag changed / item label=C2: Mark as Deleted command=addAttribute parameter=revisionflag deleted / item label=C2: Remove Markup command=removeMarkup / editMenu / /menu /command binding mousePressed button=3/ command name=contextualMenu / /binding command name = phraseWithAddedRevision macro undoable=true sequence command name=wrap parameter=phrase / command name=selectNode parameter=self / command name=addAttribute parameter=revisionflag added / /sequence /macro /command command name = phraseWithChangedRevision macro undoable=true sequence command name=wrap parameter=phrase / command name=selectNode parameter=self / command name=addAttribute parameter=revisionflag changed / /sequence /macro /command command name = phraseWithDeletedRevision macro undoable=true sequence command name=wrap parameter=phrase / command name=selectNode parameter=self / command name=addAttribute parameter=revisionflag deleted / /sequence /macro /command command name = removeMarkup macro undoable=true sequence command name=selectNode parameter=selfOrElement / command name=removeAttribute parameter=revisionflag / command name=convert parameter=#text / /sequence /macro /command Right now, the main thing I wish I could change is that the Remove Markup menu is selectable even if you select something that has not had its revisionFlag attribute set. But so far, so good. Again, many thanks! Dave Shevitz Hussein Shafie wrote: David 'Dox' Shevitz wrote: I understand that Docbook includes a revisionflag attribute that allows you to let others know that content has been added or changed. I was hoping to put together a custom popup menu (or an addition to the default popup menu) and a custom toolbar that allows you to quickly set this flag to a specific value. For example a user right-clicks a para element and has the following options available: Track Changes: Added (sets revisionflag to Added) Track Changes: Changed (sets revisionflag to Changed) Track Changes: Deleted (sets revisionflag to Deleted) It would be particularly useful if the menu had some intelligence behind that detected if only text was selected and, if so, wrap the text in a phrase element so that a flag could be added. I've been reading through the Configuration and Deployment guide, but
[XXE] Track Changes Popup Menu/Toolbar
Hello, I understand that Docbook includes a revisionflag attribute that allows you to let others know that content has been added or changed. I was hoping to put together a custom popup menu (or an addition to the default popup menu) and a custom toolbar that allows you to quickly set this flag to a specific value. For example a user right-clicks a para element and has the following options available: Track Changes: Added (sets revisionflag to Added) Track Changes: Changed (sets revisionflag to Changed) Track Changes: Deleted (sets revisionflag to Deleted) It would be particularly useful if the menu had some intelligence behind that detected if only text was selected and, if so, wrap the text in a phrase element so that a flag could be added. I've been reading through the Configuration and Deployment guide, but I think I'm tackling a task that is more than I can handle, because I can't seem to get things to work. Does anyone have any suggestions? Many thanks, Dave Shevitz
