Watch a Demonstration
XMetaL in 37 Minutes Archive
- Dropping content isn’t a drag:Handling drag & drop (& paste) into XMetaL documents
- What WILL my output look like:Customizing the Page Preview in XMetaL
- Custom XML through DITA Specialization
- Putting DITA Localization into Practice
- XMetaL Macros for Non-Programmers
- Deploying Schemas and XMetaL Customization Files
- Storage Options for XML Content
- DITA Open Toolkit Deployment
- Custom Dialog Programming Odds & Ends
- Customizing Your Content with DITA Conditional Text
- Getting to Yes: Overcoming Barriers to XML Adoption in the Enterprise
- Extending XMetaL Author Using the Resource Manager
Dropping content isn’t a drag:Handling drag & drop (& paste) into XMetaL documents
Raise your hand if you’ve heard this before: Can I drag and drop (or paste) content from somewhere else into XMetaL? The answer is a qualified “yes” — it can be done, but if the stuff being dropped is not already plain XML, someone has to write some script to make it happen. (That someone is you, the XMetaL customizer.) The stickiest part of the problem is transforming the dropped data into valid XML. But in addition to that, you need to know the mechanics of processing these user actions in XMetaL. In this webinar we will leave aside the “transformation” part of the problem, and focus on the XMetaL APIs for detecting and handling user drop/paste events and inspecting and accessing the user’s data from the clipboard.
What WILL my output look like? Customizing the Page Preview in XMetaL
XMetaL Author’s “Page Preview” is intended to show a preview of how your document will look when it is published. Without any customization, this is simply an HTML view that approximates the appearance of the document in Normal View in the editor. In this webinar we’ll show you how to customize the Page Preview to match your real published output, including using your own style sheets, and providing either HTML or PDF previews. Please note: This webinar is intended for customizers and users of non-DITA document types. For DITA users, XMetaL already provides page previews using the DITA Open Toolkit. Also note that we’ll be diving into some script code, so it will be lightly technical.
Custom XML through DITA Specialization
The “X” in XML stands for “extensible,” and many organizations benefit from designing or adapting XML structural rules for their own needs. The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML language designed to be customized, using a feature called “specialization.” XMetaL Author Enterprise is easily configured to work with DITA specializations. You can get up and running with a specialization in minutes, and if you have some knowledge of programming you can also customize XMetaL menus and toolbars for an optimal user experience. In this session, we’ll show how to set up XMetaL to work with a realistic example of a specialized DITA document type.
Putting DITA Localization into Practice
Using the DITA XML standard can bring enormous improvements in the efficiency of localizing documentation. Some organizations report efficiency gains of 30-50% over traditional desktop publishing systems, and use the savings to expand further into global markets. This session gives a practical set of steps and guidelines for delivering your content smoothly and quickly in multiple languages. We will cover how to mark up content, how localization affects reuse, how to work with translators, and issues in generating localized deliverables. You’ll learn about the big picture of how translation works in DITA, what steps you need to include in your process in order to get high-quality results, and exactly how to avoid common pitfalls that tend to make localization tricky.
XMetaL Macros for Non-Programmers: A Light Introduction
Macros are the basic unit of extensibility for XMetaL. A macro consists of some script code plus a small amount of metadata — such as a name and hotkey — which then becomes an executable action that XMetaL will perform for you. We provide an introduction to XMetaL macros, including an overview of the different types of macros that you can write, and some examples of simple macros that you can use to enhance the XMetaL environment. Even though we look at real script code, you do not need scripting/programming experience to understand this introductory webinar … but we do secretly hope that you’ll be tempted to try some afterwards!
Deploying Schemas and XMetaL Customization Files
XMetaL Author Enterprise, XMetaL Author Essential and XMAX allow you to edit documents conforming to any XML document type (DTD or W3C Schema). A developer may include “customization” files with a DTD or Schema to provide specific styling, custom behaviors, and actions that aid the author in working with a particular document type.We explore:
- How XMetaL Author locates your schema.
- How XMetaL Author locates “customization” files associated with the schema (CSS, CTM, MCR and others).
- Various deployment strategies.
Storage Options for XML Content
Teams using XML for structured documents typically need to store many interlinked pieces of content, in a way which supports collaboration and minimizes file-management errors. Options range from free, simple technologies based on the Windows file system to sophisticated component content management systems. In this webinar, we review the capabilities of a range of options, including Subversion, WebDAV, and full component content management systems, and discuss what kinds of teams would find each option to be a good fit for them.
DITA Open Toolkit Deployment with XMetaL Author Enterprise 6.0
The DITA Open Toolkit is installed and preconfigured to work out of the box with XMetaL Author Enterprise. It is deployed on a per-user basis with each user of the software running their own copy.We explore:
- Why, when, and where the DITA OT is deployed.
- Deployment strategies and configuration settings related to deployment.
- Making changes to the correct copy of the DITA OT.
- XMetaL Author Enterprise extensions to the DITA OT.
Audience: Anyone that needs to modify the DITA OT and people that will be maintaining XMetaL Author Enterprise installations.
XMetaL Custom Dialog Programming Odds & Ends
XMetaL Author can be easily extended by adding custom dialogs to prompt the user for information and decisions. We spend 37 minutes looking at:
- Linking a dialog to a menu item,
- XMetaL’s built in dialogs for alerts and prompts,
- Building a custom dialog,
- Passing objects from your JavaScript code to the dialog,
- Options for where your script code can live.
Customizing Your Content with DITA Conditional Text
With XMetaL and DITA, you can create documents customized for various audiences, products, and platforms from a single set of source files. XMetaL includes a sophisticated and easy-to-use set of features for applying consistent tags to conditionalize content, for color-coding conditional text in authoring views, and for generating customized output. In this webinar, we take a close look at how to set up and use conditional text in DITA with XMetaL.
Getting to Yes: Overcoming Barriers to XML Adoption in the Enterprise
Adopting XML is a rewarding and challenging exercise in change management for any team. A crucial success factor is whether team members feel confident and productive with the new processes and technologies. In this session we look at concrete things that managers can do to plan and manage successful XML implementations, with minimal stress for everyone involved.
Extending XMetaL Author Using the Resource Manager
XML content is rarely authored in a vacuum. The Resource Manager in XMetaL Author provides a convenient piece of screen real-estate to connect the author to the rest of the world. Sitting right beside the editor pane in XMetaL Author, it’s the perfect place to present information needed by the author, collect ancillary information about the content while it’s fresh in the author’s mind, or display widgets for the author to initiate additional processing on the content.For example, you can use the Resource Manager to:
- display a to-do list of changes that need to be made to a document
- embed a powerful third-party image editor, e.g. to display and interact with a 3D image of a machine part
- let the author search for relevant reusable content
- let the author record metadata while they author a document
See a quick introduction to embedding Internet Explorer in the XMetaL Resource Manager and how to communicate between Internet Explorer and XMetaL Author and your back-end systems.
