XMetaL Author is the leading authoring application for organizations using any XML document type, including the most complete support for the Darwin Information Typing Architecture, or DITA. XMetaL Author also helps you maximize content reuse through tight integration with content repositories, address advanced publishing requirements with an extensible publishing framework, and improve collaboration with reviewers by being able to merge XMetaL Reviewer comments and addenda directly into your documents.
With this version, XMetaL Author extends the functionality and ease-of-use that has already made it more intuitive than Microsoft Word plug-ins or any other structured authoring solution on the market, while still providing the power and flexibility of professional desktop publishing tools.
This feature allows you to quickly and easily manage project reviews without the need to switch from XMetaL Author to Reviewer.
The result is a more cohesive and efficient documentation cycle.
The background spell checker lets you identify possible spelling mistakes as you type. Automatic spelling correction corrects misspelled words that are similar to words in the main word list or user word lists.
W3C XInclude Version 1.0 (Second Edition) introduces a generic mechanism for merging XML documents (as represented by their information sets) for use by applications that need such a facility. The syntax leverages existing XML constructs - elements, attributes, and URL references.
XMetaL Author provides a DocBook sample intended to demonstrate new features such as Xinclude. This sample is available from the Help > Samples menu in XMetaL Author.
Results Manager processes XML inclusion errors that are then displayed in the Results pane at the bottom of the XMetaL Author user interface. You can access individual errors in the Link Errors pane and address issues one by one.
XMetaL Author's XML Schema now supports document instances and related schemas that rely on the xs:redefine construct. For example, S1000D Issue 4.0 relies on the xs:redefine construct.
XMetaL will open documents using XML Schema (XSDs) that use the xs:redefine feature.
WebHelp is now included as an output option in XMetaL. WebHelp is a frameset help that features a table of contents, search and index. Viewed on an Internet browser, WebHelp lets you deliver help for web-based applications across multiple platforms.
Map Editor now provides enhanced support for bookmaps. You can now insert the Chapter, Appendix and Part bookmap element types in the Map Editor.
Map Editor now supports specialized map content. You can insert any specified, specialized Topic Reference element type.
Map Editor may be configured to adjust its selection to reflect a newly activated topic display in TagsOn or Normal view. If configured, The Map Editor makes its active selection the first Topic Reference whose href value corresponds with the newly activated document. Otherwise, the active selection remains unchanged.
Map Editor now supports keyboard commands for common actions such as adjusting selections, deleting selections and viewing a selection's properties.
With the addition of new configuration primitives for document customizations, non-DITA schemas can easily benefit from the value provided by an XMetaL Connector. If your schema's XMetaL customization is already configured for images, XMetaL Author Enterprise and an XMetaL Connector enable you to create those image links to files stored in the CMS. Similarly, if your schema permits making links to other files (e.g., XInclude href), it is a simple document customization configuration step to enable an XMetaL Connector for you.
See XMetaL Developer 6.0 for more information on configuring Treat as Link and Treat as Image.
XMetaL's Generate Output feature can be run in the background. If enabled, this feature frees up XMetaL Author for the user to continue with other authoring tasks while output is being generated. Simply change the Configure Output advanced output parameter _rem_cmd_synchro_mode = 2 to cmd_synchro_mode = 2.
XMetaL Author Enterprise now provides authors with the capability to view content references (conrefs) within CALS tables. XMetaL Normal and Tags On views display a preview of referenced content in table rows, as these views already do for conrefs in other element types.
* 32-bit versions only. 64-bit is not supported currently though customers have reported the software appears to install and function correctly via the Windows-On-Windows (WOW) layer. Although no problems have appeared with XMetaL Author installed on a Windows 7 64-bit system, please use XMetaL Author at your own risk.
Some new APIs, event-macros and INI switches have been added to XMetaL Author, further extending the platform's customizability. Please refer to XMetaL Developer documentation for more information.
This release includes new APIs, as follows:
| API | Description |
|---|---|
| ResolvePath | Property for path of a link element. Use this property while in the On_Resolve_Link_URL_And_Path macro. |
| ParentURL | Returns link's parent document url. Use this property while in the On_Resolve_Link_URL_And_Path macro. |
| ResolveAttrName | Returns link attribute name. Use this property while in the On_Resolve_Link_URL_And_Path macro. |
| ResolveAttrNS | Returns link attribute namespace name. Use this property while in the On_Resolve_Link_URL_And_Path macro. |
| ResultsManager | Returns the Results Manager object. |
| IniVariable | Get value of xmetal INI variable as string. Returns empty string if no variable found. |
| IsImportantContextPopup | Returns TRUE if menu item is for correcting misspelt word or accept/reject track change. Such menu items should be left at top of right-click menu. |
| ShowLinkLogTab | Show XInclude Link log tab in Results pane. |
| HideLinkLogTab | Show XInclude Link log tab in Results pane. |
| ShowXInclude | Show XInclude |
| HideXInclude | Hide XInclude |
| UpdateXInclude | Update XInclude |
| OpenXIncludeTarget | Open XInclude Target |
| ExportWithXIncludesToXML | Export With XIncludes to xml |
| ActiveXIncludeNode | Returns the current xinclude node before its target gets attached |
| IsXIncludeNode | Returns true if the node is xinclude node |
| IsNamespaceAware | Returns true if doc is aware of namespace |
| PurgeXIncludeCache | Clear XInclude target source cache |
| SetXIncludeFeature | Set xinclude feature |
| LinkResolutionErrorList | Returns a link resolution error list object. |
| ConvertXIncludeTargetToXML | Get xml string of xinlcude target fragment |
| ExportWithXIncludesToFile | Export With XIncludes to file |
| GetXIncludeTargetState | Return xinclude node target doc state |
| RegisterNonCopyableAttr | Register non-copyableable attribute names. |
| BackgroundSpellchecking | Get/set background spellchecking enable/disable status for this document. |
| SpellAutoCorrect | Get/set 'spell autocorrect' spellchecking status for this document. |
| IsSpellingCorrect | Checks spelling for word under cursor. |
| GetSpellingResult | Returns Spelled word (mode:1), list of suggestions (mode:1), list of synonyms (mode:2)for word under cursor. |
| ReplaceWord | Replace word under cursor. |
| IgnoreWordSpelling | Ignore word spelling for word under cursor or selection. |
| AddWordToDictionary | Add to dictionary word under cursor or selection. |
| SetSpellCheckerService | Set spell checker service implementation |
| InlineMediaVisible | Visibility of images and OCXReplacements, i.e. Hide/Show Inline Images state |
| Name | Returns the element name of the link. |
| ParentList | Returns the parent elements name of the link. |
| Source | Returns the source attribute name of the link. |
| EnableBuiltInChooser | Returns if the built-in chooser is used. |
| ChooserTitleString | Returns the title string for the built-in chooser. |
| ChooserFilterString | Returns the filter string for the built-in chooser. |
| EnableBuiltInFetcher | Returns if the built-in fetcher is used to retrieve the item from CMS system |
| EnableRebase | Returns if the source attribute value needs to be rebased for save-as operation. |
| EnableFolderLink | Returns if the link links to a folder. |
| Item | Returns a link item. Index ranges from 0 to Count - 1. |
| Count | Returns the number of link items. |
| Links | Returns an object for the Links. |
A substantial number of minor defects, customer-reported issues and enhancements are addressed with this release. Noteworthy improvements are detailed in this document.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Chameleon schema include support | XMetaL no longer requires included schemas to declare a targetNamespace that matches the including schema's targetNamespace |
| Proper Windows IME positioning | Support of the Windows IME for entering Japanese/Chinese/Korean has been improved. |
| File->New event macro | Code adjusted such that File->New event macro is run before other, newer macros to maintain backward compatibility |
| Setting CSS text-decoration property to "none" | CSS inheritance is blocked if the element has text-decoration=none |
| Supression of warnings on loading RLX file | An INI variable has been introduced to detect if an RLX file has been generated |
| Viewing the output log in German version of XMetaL | The output log can now be viewed after generating a PDF or HTML files in the German version of XMetaL |
| Inserting content no longer removes existing revision marking | Adding text between normal content and content surrounded by revision marks caused revision marking to be removed in XMetaL 5.5. This is no longer the case. |
| Memory leak when updating conref references | Fixes applied to contain the memory leak when updating conref references |
| XMetaL hangs when text selected in TagsOn or Normal view without releasing mouse for 5 sec. in a document opened via drag and drop. | In XMetaL 5.5, XMetaL hung after selecting text in TagsOn or Normal view without releasing the mouse for 5 seconds in a document opened via drag and drop. This has now been fixed. |
| File->Exit macro | XMetaL Author now supports running multiple "File->Exit" macros. |
| Schema: valid attribute value containing a space | Schema: valid attribute value containing a space no longer causes a validation error |
| CSS border setting in one element causes crash after deleting another node | CSS border setting in one element no longer causes a crash after deleting another node in Normal view. |
| EPS image causes XMetaL to crash or fail to load or render XML document | XML document failed to render when it included a reference to a particular form of EPS file, possibly causing XMetaL to crash. Did not happen for all EPS file types. This has been fixed. |
| Sandboxing triple-level map | When doing sandboxing, the topicref.href in the first map is now being resolved correctly. |
| Single HTML output contains named character entities | Single HTML no longer produces output containing named character entities |
| CHM failure when generating output to mapped drive | Generating CHM output for a map stored on a shared drive with a mapped drive letter failed when map was opened from within XMetaL using the File > Open command. This has now been fixed |
| Opening a partial DITA document, xmetal.rlx file written out instead | An extra check test was added to see if a named entity is the DTD/document entity and it will be ignored as a duplicate/already-open case |
| Single HTML with image under Documentum connector | Generating output for a DITA composite document that contains an image is now possible |
| Referencing another map file as href target from a "Preface" element in a ditamap | The "Preface" element has been added to the list of references that can be inserted |
| Map elements not automatically assigned an ID | When creating new maps within the Map Editor, the root map element's ID attribute was not automatically assigned |
DITA 1.1 is the default DTD version when working with DITA documents. If you do not wish to use DITA 1.1, you can revert to DITA 1.0 by following these steps:
Previous versions of XMetaL Author created files that conform to DITA 1.0. These files include some attributes that are not allowed in DITA 1.1 and they will cause validation errors if you attempt to edit them or generate output using DITA 1.1. For this reason, we have supplied the ditacleaner utility.
The ditacleaner utility is a command-line tool that you can use to clean files of attributes that are not allowed in DITA 1.1. The tool is installed at C:\Program Files\Common Files\XMetaL Shared\ditacleaner. Configuration settings are stored in config.xml. By default (that is, without editing the configuration file), the tool removes the xmlns, ditaarch:DITAArchVersion, domains, class, and xmlns:ditaarch attributes with empty values from files with .xml, .dita, and .ditamap extensions. (By default, previous versions of XMetaL always created these attributes with empty values, for example, 'xmlns=""'.)
If you need to change the default configuration settings, for example, if you specified a value for any of the abovementioned attributes, you can edit the configuration file in a text editor. Attributes to be removed are specified in the AttrName property. You can specify a string or regular expression in the attrValuePattern property. If you specify a value, only attributes that match the value are removed.
You are advised to convert all existing DITA 1.0 documents to DITA 1.1 at one time to avoid version and compatibility issues.
We recommend backing up your existing documents before working with this tool.
To use the tool, do the following:
| -c |
Allows you to specify an alternate configuration file. This argument is optional; by default config.xml is used. |
| file_path |
Specify a file to clean using the AttrName and attrValuePattern properties contained in the configuration file. |
| folder_path |
Specify a folder containing DITA files. File types to clean are read in from the configuration file. Files contained in sub-folders are also cleaned. |
You can specify one or more files and folders on the command line. Here is an example:
ditacleaner c:/temp/file1.xml c:/temp2/files.xml d:/legacy
IIS 7.0 is no longer open for anonymous HTTP put operations. Consequently, XMetaL cannot open files for editing over an Internet connection, which causes files to open as read-only.
For more information, go to http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/360/what39s-new-for-webdav-and-iis-70/ and refer to the third bullet point under the "Changes and Known Issues in WebDAV for IIS 7.0" section.
If you encounter this error message during XMetaL Author startup, it is most likely that the software was installed using the 'Only for me' option. That means XMetaL Author can only be run from the user account designated at installation time. Kill XMetaL Author using the TaskManager and run XMetaL Author from the correct user account.
Increase the amount of memory allocated to your Java processor
You may encounter Java memory errors when generating output, particularly for large documents. You can correct this error by increasing the amount of memory allocated to your Java processor. By default, Java uses 128 Mb of memory, and if this process exceeds that amount, you will see the error 'java.lang.OutOfMemoryError' in the output log. You can increase the memory allocation to the Java processor by modifying the Xmx and Xms variables.
When generating output, you can monitor the amount of memory used by the Java process through the Task Manager. The Java process terminates with an out of memory error when the memory usage and virtual memory size become equal. (You can display these values through the View > Select Columns dialog in the Task Manager.) This allows you to determine the maximum amount of memory you require for a given output.
<java classname="com.icl.saxon.StyleSheet" classpathref="project.class.path" fork="true">and add the following argument:
<jvmarg value="-Xmx1024m"/>Here is how the element should look:
<java classname="com.icl.saxon.StyleSheet" classpathref="project.class.path" fork="true"> <jvmarg value="-Xmx1024m"/> ... <java>
<java classname="com.idiominc.ws.opentopic.fo.xep.Runner" resultproperty="errCode" failonerror="false" fork="true" maxmemory="256m">and change the maxmemory value to 1024. Then add the following argument:
<jvmarg value="-Xmx1024m"/>
ANT_OPTS = -Xms1024m -Xmx1024m
Increase the application wait time
When generating output, XMetaL may display an error message before the Java process has finished. This situation is particularly relevant to versions of XMetaL before 5.0.10. You can correct this error by increasing the application wait time.
Use the Saxon processor
By default, all output formats, with the exception of PDF via RenderX, use the Xalan processor. However, you may be able to prevent out-of-memory errors by switching to the less memory intensive Saxon processor. The following procedure illustrates how to modify the HTML Help (CHM) deliverable type to use the Saxon processor.
cmd_always_open_log = yes
C:\Program Files\XMetaL 5\Author>set CLASSPATH=C:\PROGRA~1\COMMON~1\XMETAL~1\DITA_OT\lib\dost.jar;;C:\PROGRA~1\COMMON~1\XMETAL~1\saxon\saxon.jar;
Now when you generate output for HTML Help, you should see the following line in the log:
[echo] * xslt.parser = SAXON
Changes in this release have been made to shorten the length of paths used to store temporary files passed to the DITA OT for processing. The maximum length of any path in Windows is 260 characters. Files in paths that exceed this limit are typically inaccessible to most applications, including Windows Explorer. Files written to such a location may cause errors in other applications that attempt to access them. To reduce the chance of this occuring changes have been made to this release that dramatically shorten the path used to store these temporary files. However, in some cases it is still possible that the 260 character limit may be exceeded.
Shortening the original DITA source file names and the folders they are stored in may help to resolve this issue. Where that is not possible or desirable you may also use two new parameters to change the path used as the temp folder.
The two new parameters are:
These parameters can be set in Configure Output -> Advanced tab -> "Other output parameters".
Examples:
The shortest possible path would be a folder named using a single character.
Note that these parameters do not cause the folder to be created; you must do that manually.
Also note that in theory it would also be possible to use C:\ as the path but that is not recommended.
Finally, this folder should be a folder on the user's local machine and not a shared / network folder.
You may set one or both parameters. DSDK_PARAM parameters are for deliverables that use JAVA and ANT_PARAM parameters are for deliverables that use ANT. Please refer to the XMetaL Author Enterprise help for a list of deliverables and whether they use JAVA or ANT.
To remove files already created in an inaccessible folder path use Windows Explorer to rename as many ancestor (parent) folders as possible in order to reduce the length of the file path. In order to free locks on such files you may need to first reboot, or you may need to perform this renaming at a Command/CMD/DOS prompt. Once the path has been reduced below 260 characters you should be able to open, copy, move or delete the files. If this fails please consult Microsoft's documentation on this subject for your particular operating system version as this is a known limitation with various Windows versions.
When you add a new relationship table (<reltable>) to a map file in Normal view, the cursor may not behave as expected. Workaround: Switch to Tags On view and right-click the mouse and choose the Insert element option to add the relationship table.
When you are working in a large bookmap and attempt to switch to Page Preview, you may have unexpected results or a general protection fault.
When opening an invalid DITA document in well-formed mode or Plain Text view, XMetaL does not load the DITA customization. As a consequence, the DITA toolbars and menu items are not available. Workaround: Open the invalid document in plain-text view, fix the validation errors, and re-start XMetaL. If you have configured XMetaL to use the DITA 1.1 DTD, you must remove the 'xmlns' attribute from the DITA document and re-start XMetaL.
Setting CSS background-color or border for elements that contain large amounts of content may compromise the performance of the editor. Workaround: use a CSS override to set 'border:none' for the element. See the online Help for information on overriding base formatting.
The output from a topic or map that includes conditional text may contain conditions that you excluded through the Show/Hide Conditional Text dialog, or vice-versa. Workaround: Close XMetaL and remove the file C:\Documents and Settings\<userid>\Application Data\SoftQuad\XMetaL\<version>\ct_preferences.xml, then re-start XMetaL and try generating output again.
When the user drags and drops internal content from one location to another, if the drop point is correct the drop is successful. However, when the user performs a single Undo, the dropped text remains at the drop point even though the original text is returned back to the initial location. To return to the original state, perform two Undo operations.
The user can drag content from one location to another within a DITA topic. However, if the user drops the content in an invalid location, the action is accepted, but the content is never actually dropped and the original content is removed from the initial location.
When generating output, the presence of files in the output directory may cause the build to fail.
When editing a DITA map file in Plain Text view, adding a <topichead> element without a navtitle attribute triggers a validation error. Although the DITA specification claims that this attribute is optional, it is, in fact, required by the DITA 1.1 DTD.
You may experience problems generating HTML and PDF if your DITA map contains topics with <conref> attributes that refer to reusable components that are saved outside of the directory in which your DITA map file is saved. It is recommended that you save your reusable components in the same directory on the same volume as your DITA map file or a directory below it.
When publishing footnotes to PDF using FOP, the footnote content is displayed within the document content and is not displayed within the bottom margin of the page. Contact XMetaL support to learn how to use a different stylesheet.
Although you can copy and paste (or cut and paste) paragraphs, headings, etc. from Microsoft Word and cell ranges from Microsoft Excel, some of the more complicated content structures cannot be pasted in their entirety into XMetaL documents. The workaround is to employ multiple copy-and-paste operations using a simpler and smaller set of content in each operation.
Web folders accessed in Windows XP must have ":80" appended to the server name.
For example, if your server is http://www.MySite.com/Folder, you must create the folder as: http://www.MySite.com:80/Folder.
WebDav is not supported for DITA documents.
When you copy and paste a content reference, the local content, not the referenced content, is displayed. To display referenced content, click Reuse > Refresh and Show Referenced Content.
While the Assets tab still functions correctly in Admin mode, it is recommended that you use another solution to manage pieces of content.
Under Limited User or Per-User mode, you can no longer drop content into the Asset tab to create new assets and the Asset tab is read-only. However, you can still drag and drop assets from the Assets tab into your document. There are no further plans to alter the Assets tab functionality.
When you change a DITA element using the Insert Element list, if the element is empty or if it contains only other empty elements, attributes are lost.
Not all bookmap elements are supported by the DITA Open Toolkit.
These lists can be added by customizing the DITA Open Toolkit.
When you generate output, you may be asked if you want to upgrade to a newer version of the toolkit. Click OK.
When you generate output, you maybe asked if you want to upgrade to a newer version of the toolkit. Click OK.
Generation of a copyright page, front cover, and back cover is not provided out of the box with the DITA Open Toolkit.
Cross-references that point to a <step> element appear with the text "list item" in PDF output created using the Book via RenderX and XMetaL Enhanced deliverable types, and other deliverable types that use the PDF2 or PDF3 transtypes .
Cross-references that point to a <step> element appear with the step number in HTML output and in PDF output created using PDF via FO with Default Prorcessing deliverable type, and other deliverable types that use the PDF1 transtype.
The Book via RenderX deliverable type, and other deliverable types that use the PDF2 transtype, fails when processing a bookmap that contains the <bookmeta> element.
The Book via RenderX deliverable type, and other deliverable types that use the PDF2 transtype, fails when processing a cross-reference that targets an element other than <topic>, <subtopic>, or <section>.
The Book via RenderX deliverable type, and other deliverable types that use the PDF2 transtype, fail when processing a content reference that cannot be resolved. In the same scenario, XMetaL Enhanced PDF deliverable types generate with nothing where the conref should be, and it will report that the build was successful. Check the output log for errors
The DITA Open Toolkit included with this release does not support the image scale property for HTML files and XMetaL Enhanced deliverable types. Images appear at 100% in output regardless of the value set for the scale property.Width a nd height attributes are supported as noted in the DITA Language Reference.
Processin g fails when you try to generate output from a DITA map that contains duplicate IDs using the Antenna House XSL Formatter.
If you create a map that contains a map reference and a topic reference and then demote the topic reference so that it is a child of the map reference, the topic reference does not appear in output. This issue applies to XMetaL Enhanced and HTML deliverable types.
This issue applies to limited users under Citrix. If you attempt to select languages from the XMetaL Author Spell Checking dialog, you will not be able to view a list of languages. In order to select a new language, users must have full Administrator access to their local operating systems.
This issue applies to limited users under Citrix. If you try to save a map in a protected folder (or location where you do not have permission to write), you will see an 'Access denied' warning. If you press OK to dismiss the warning, the close operation continues, but the map file is not saved.
There are various cases where an operation might not succeed because of permission issues. For example, you may be prevented from opening a generated PDF or CHM file that is saved to the local machine drive ($C). Another example is drag-and-drop. If you try to drop a file located on the client machine into XMetaL (running on the server), this will fail. However, drag-and-drop from the Desktop tab in the Resource Manager is supported.
XMetaL running on German versions of Windows may crash while generating output for DITA content.
For work-around to this issue, please select Tools > Configure Output... and click OK once for the software to properly prepare the system for generating output.
XMetaL Author Enterprise Edition 6.0J に関する製品お問い合せは下記までお願いいたします。
E-Mail xmetal@antenna.co.jp