VideosDITA Maps Manager
Table of Contents
- Introduction01:55
- Organizing Maps01:26
- The Edit Properties Dialog Box01:51
- Insert References01:28
- Publishing DITA Maps01:38
Overview
Duration: 08:58
This video presents some of the unique and helpful features that you will find
in the powerful DITA Maps Manager. Among other things, it will show you the basics of
managing DITA maps, the Edit Properties dialog box, adding topic references, and
publishing DITA maps.
Transcript
00:00:07This demonstration will show you some of the unique and helpful features that you will
00:00:12find in the powerful DITA Maps Manager.
00:00:16Among other things, I will show you the basics of managing DITA maps, the Edit Properties
00:00:21dialog box, adding topic references, and publishing DITA maps.
00:00:27The DITA Maps Manager is a dockable view in Oxygen and by default, it appears to the left
00:00:33of the main editing area.
00:00:35It allows you to navigate and organize the
structure of your DITA maps in a very intuitive
00:00:39manner and it includes a variety of useful
actions and options to help you manage, edit,
00:00:47and publish your DITA maps and their content.
00:00:50To load a map, simply double-click a ditamap file in the Projects view ... or you can press
00:00:58the Open button to browse for one.
00:01:02First off, let's get you familiar with the
00:01:04interface of the DITA Maps Manager.
00:01:07Notice that the DITA Maps Manager has its own set of buttons on its toolbar at the top
00:01:12of the view.
00:01:13You can also find these actions, as well as others, in the contextual menu of each topic reference.
00:01:20Next, I want to draw your attention to the
root map selector that allows you to set a
00:01:25main map to help prevent validation problems and resolve keys throughout the entire map structure.
00:01:32The main panel in the DITA Maps Manager displays your map structure.
00:01:37Also, notice that there is an icon for each
node that indicates its type and you can hover
00:01:43over a node to see its type and file path.
00:01:47To open a topic referenced in the map, just double-click a node in the DITA Maps Manager.
00:01:56Now I want to show you how you can use the DITA Maps Manager to organize your maps.
00:02:02Notice that it presents your maps in a manner that is similar to a table of contents.
00:02:07As you would expect, it supports most of the common editing actions, so you can use copy,
00:02:12cut, and paste shortcuts to manage the structure of the topics within the map...
00:02:19... use the mouse to move topics around in the map ...
00:02:28...
hold the CTRL or Shift key while using the
00:02:31mouse to select and move multiple topics...
... if you want to make a copy of the selection
00:02:36instead of moving it, simply press the CTRL key before dropping it...
00:02:41... use the DELETE key to remove topics from the map...
00:02:45... and of course, you can also use the Undo and Redo actions.
00:02:50The contextual menu also includes various actions for editing and organizing the structure
00:02:55of your maps.
00:02:59Since the main editor and the DITA Maps Manager are automatically synchronized, if I make
00:03:04a change to any of the referrenced resources in the editor ... for example, changing the
00:03:10title of one of the topics ... it will also
be reflected in the DITA Maps Manager.
00:03:24The next thing I want to show you is the "Edit Properties" dialog box.
00:03:28It allows you to view and edit the properties of a selected node.
00:03:33The properties that are available to edit
depend on the type of node where you invoke
00:03:37it... in my case, it is a topic reference.
00:03:41In this dialog box, the properties are grouped in several tabs that are available on the left side.
00:03:47The "Target" tab displays information about the target node, such as the actual file path
00:03:53and ID for the topic reference.
00:03:56The "Keys" tab can be used to define keys
for the selected node.
00:04:00Note that the "Choose key reference" button to the right of the "Key Reference" field
00:04:05shows you all the keys that are defined in
your root map.
00:04:09Next, the "Attributes" tab allows you to add or edit the node's attribute values.
00:04:15Note that the most commonly used attributes are promoted in upper part of the dialog box.
00:04:21For example, I'll add a value to the navigation title for my topic reference... and lock it.
00:04:28...I'll select "sequence" for the collection
type attribute...
00:04:32...and I'll assign an ID for my topic reference.
00:04:37Notice that this attribute is in the "Other
attributes" table and I can simply double-click
00:04:42the appropriate cell and enter the value.
00:04:46Moving on, the "Metadata" tab allows you to add metadata elements to the selected node.
00:04:52For example, you can enter a short description.
00:04:57Finally, the "Profiling" tab allows you to
select profiling attributes for the selected node.
00:05:02Now that I'm done with my changes, I click "OK" and notice that any visible changes are
00:05:08immediately reflected in the DITA Maps Manager.
00:05:15Next, I'll show you how to insert references in the map structure.
00:05:19In my case, I have a topic opened in the editor that I created in my project and now I need
00:05:26to insert a reference to it in my DITA map.
00:05:28In the DITA Maps Manager, I find the location where I want to insert it, I right-click that
00:05:33particular node...
...and I have three options that I can choose
00:05:37from that will determine where the reference ends up in my map.
00:05:43I can choose "Append Child" to insert it as
a child of the selected node...
00:05:47I can choose "Insert Before" to insert it
as a sibling right before the selected node...
00:05:53or I can choose "Insert After" to insert it
as a sibling right after the selected node...
00:05:59Notice that there are numerous types of references
that you can insert from these submenus and
00:06:06you can even choose "New" to start a file
creation wizard.
00:06:11For my use-case, I'm going to select "Reference to the currently edited file".
00:06:17Notice that this opens a dialog box that is
identical to the "Edit Properties" dialog
00:06:21box that I just showed you.
00:06:24You can use the same tabs to configure various properties depending on the type of reference
00:06:29you are inserting.
00:06:31To insert the reference, I'll click "Insert
and close".
00:06:36Notice that in the DITA Maps Manager, the reference was immediately inserted and it's
00:06:41now part of my structure.
00:06:43Another cool feature is the ability to quickly create multiple skeleton topics at once and
00:06:49you can easily specify their structure within the DITA map.
00:06:53For example, I can quickly add a new skeleton chapter in my DITA map, knowing that its structure
00:06:59should look like this...
00:07:05After clicking the Create button, Oxygen created a set of empty topics and inserted references
00:07:12to them in the DITA map.
00:07:14Now I can start adding content in each of
them...
00:07:22The last thing that I want to show you is
how to use the DITA Maps Manager to publish
00:07:27your map content.
00:07:29In DITA, you usually want to publish the content from an entire map, rather than an individual topic.
00:07:36By running a transformation scenario from the DITA Maps Manager, oXygen collects all
00:07:40the content that is referenced in the map,
organizes it according to the structure that
00:07:46you see in the DITA Maps Manager, and then produces the output in a particular format
00:07:51that you choose when you configure the transformation scenario.
00:07:55Oxygen has a large number of built-in transformation
scenarios that you can choose from.
00:08:01If I click the "Configure Transformation Scenarios" button on the DITA Maps Manager toolbar...
00:08:05...you can see all the default output formats that are available when transforming a DITA map.
00:08:10
00:08:12I'm going to select one of the WebHelp transformation scenarios.
00:08:16I could of course click "Edit" or "Duplicate"
to configure various options for my transformation scenario...
00:08:21
00:08:23For my purposes, I'm just going to use the
default options so I'll click "Apply associated".
00:08:29After the transformation processes, it automatically opens in your default browser and notice that
00:08:35the output has the same structure as the map in the DITA Maps Manager.
00:08:40As you have seen, Oxygen's DITA Maps Manager is a powerful tool that allows you to control
00:08:45all aspects of a documentation lifecycle,
from the creation stage to basic editing to publishing.
00:08:51And this concludes the demonstration.Thanks
for watching!
Related Videos
|
Use Oxygen Feedback to ask us anything about this video.