Arbortext PTC/User Blog

Please join us online for our regular meeting:

“An ACL Tool to Find and Replace XML Attribute Values“

Presented by Todd Hicks, Wolters Kluwer
North America Global Platform Organization

Date: Saturday, 23 October 2010, 9:00-10:30 AM Pacific/US

Location: Online via GoToMeeting. You must Register to receive the GoToMeeting invite.

Cost: Free and open to all who wish to attend.

Topic

Legal publishing uses a lot of attributes, and CCH publications are some of the richest legal reporting available. When we converted to SGML nine years ago, one of the first things our users requested was a way to modify attributes globally outside the Arbortext Editor Modify Attributes dialog. Often they have been required to open XML files in Notepad, or Edit as XML Source to change attributes in large files, which led to error and was very time-consuming. The project got on the schedule in 2007, and we started the initial analysis, starting with what language to write the tool in, and how to create the interface.

Because this tool requires a good deal of querying the DTD, we decided to write it in ACL. The interface requirements included making it impossible for a user to create invalid XML. For example, the tool needed to remove #FIXED attributes from the attribute list, and, if the user wanted to delete attribute values, the tool needed to remove #REQUIRED attributes from the list. While the Arbortext Object Model (AOM) exposes only a namelist of required attrs, these attribute types are exposed by the tag_attr_required() and tag_attr_fixed() ACL functions. Dozens of such calls that query the DTD or a given Object ID (oid) are easily accessible in ACL.

Because this tool requires a complex dialog box with 24 dialog controls, and because we wanted to give the users a beautiful dialog box, we needed a way to create the dialog that would allow us to drag and drop dialog elements, resizing and changing appearance in real time. We used ACL Designer, a powerful but unsupported interface design tool that, with a conversion program that ships with Arbortext Editor, can be used to create XUI dialog boxes with a wide variety of controls. The ACL dlgitem functions allow granular management of dialog item controls.

As Spider-Man knows, “With great power comes great responsibility.” The Global Attribute Find-Replace tool can save a huge amount of time, but it can also destroy a lot of content very quickly. The danger of using the tool incorrectly is mitigated by two layers between the core find-replace function and the user: a business-logic layer, which allows granular control over what the user can and can’t do; and a dialog layer, which  allows XML-aware control over user input. Because of this tiered approach, it was easy to develop another tool on top of the core function.

This presentation will show you

• an end-to-end example of Requirements Gathering, Technical Design, and Application Development for a complex XML tool
• powerful XML and dialog functions in ACL
• a “tiered” approach to application development
• tips on controlling dialog behavior
• XUI tips
• ideas for interface design and implementation

This project involved a great deal of requirements gathering, meetings, testing, signoffs, and ongoing user input, to come to fruition. The process worked, and we now have a valuable addition to Editor functionality that saves a great deal of time and error.

About the Speaker

Todd Hicks has been working in legal publishing for 20 years, and with Arbortext for ten years. In high school he ran the old printing press, and knew then that he wanted to be involved in publishing. An English major in college, he became a proofreader for CCH, Incorporated, and quickly moved to technical writing, and then to programming, especially for publishing and user interfaces. When CCH converted to SGML, he wrote Wordbasic/Onmimark scripts; when CCH started using Arbortext Adept Editor, he learned ACL, Java, and Javascript, built dozens of tools, and designed the infrastructure for the editor and its interface with Information Manager, our CMS at the time. He now leads a team of Editor programmers to build tools and infrastructure for Arbortext Editor and its interface with Documentum at Wolters Kluwer. He has presented three times at Arbortext conferences.

Note

This meeting will be held online. You must RSVP to receive the GoToMeeting invite. After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

Acknowledgments

This meeting is brought to you by the SF Bay Arbortext PTC/User Group.

We want to thank Single-Sourcing Solutions for coordinating our meeting logistics, administration, and for providing access to their GoToMeeting resources and conference bridge facilities.

Please join us online for our regular meeting:

“Building the future of technical publishing
with MathFlow, MathType, and MathML“

Presented by Autumn Cuellar & Robert Miner, Design Science

Date: Saturday, 25 September 2010, 9:00-10:30 AM Pacific/US

Location: Online via GoToMeeting. You must Register to receive the GoToMeeting invite.

Cost: Free and open to all who wish to attend.

Topic

The XML standards framework underlying many technical publishing challenges and opportunities of the last decade has noticeably matured in recent years.  A long list of technologies such as HTML, DITA, MathML, SVG, CSS and PDF now have very full and stable feature sets that are more and more widely and dependably implemented.  As a predictable consequence, the energy of early adopters is again on the move, shifting toward creative combination and reuse of these technologies. Web applications for collaboration, social networking and distributed authoring web applications are proliferating at a tremendous pace. eBooks are increasingly popular, with readers seeking access not only from desktops but a variety of readers, devices and tablets, where electronic ink is an input format.

What does all this mean for you? In this presentation, we’ll discuss the future of technical publishing, both from the point of view of taking advantage of the maturation of the traditional XML standards framework, as well as the perspective of putting yourself in a position to get out in front of emerging trends.

About the Speaker

Robert Miner leads Design Science’s research and development efforts. He has led the development of Design Science’s MathFlow product line from its inception, and now oversees development of DSI’s MathType, MathPlayer and MathDaisy products as well. While at DSI, Miner helped initiate research programs for adding value to electronic math content, particularly in the areas of math-aware searching and mathematics accessibility. In addition, Miner co-chairs the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Math Working Group that developed and maintains MathML, an XML markup language for mathematics. He has written and spoken extensively on MathML and its impact on technical publishing. Robert received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Maryland, and studied at Oxford and Universität Bern.

Autumn Cuellar is the XML Specialist at Design Science, where she works with publishers, engineers, educators, and programmers to include MathML in XML publishing workflows. Before joining Design Science, Autumn was a researcher at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, developing CellML, an XML language for describing biological models, and associated metadata and ontologies.

Autumn Cuellar

Note

This meeting will be held online. You must RSVP to receive the GoToMeeting invite. After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

Acknowledgments

This meeting is brought to you by the SF Bay Arbortext PTC/User Group.

We want to thank Single-Sourcing Solutions for coordinating our meeting logistics, administration, and for providing access to their GoToMeeting resources and conference bridge facilities.

This video goes with the meeting notice posted here. This video is a recorded version of:

“Why DITA Why XML Why Now”
Presented by Julio Vazquez, SDI
March 2010 Arbortext PTC/User Group Meeting

This is a recorded version of a live Go2Meeting webcast. The video is posted as is. It has not been edited. You should go read Julio’s biography here. Every last bit is completely live.

You can access the video here. You may need the Citrix Go2Meeting codec which is available here.

 Why XML, Why DITA, Why Now by Julio Vazquez, SDI: Play Now | Play in Popup

Update: Video has been posted here. Intro slides here.

Please join us online for our next meeting:

“Why XML, Why Now, Why DITA”

Presented by Julio Vasquez, SDI

Date: Saturday, 27 March 2010, 9:00-10:30 AM Pacific/US

Location: Online via GoToMeeting. You must Register to receive the GoToMeeting invite.

Cost: Free and open to all who wish to attend.

Registration Web Link: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/798824482

Topic

Unless you live in a cave, it’s hard to escape the commotion being raised out there by people talking about XML and DITA structures. All the buzz may have you wondering why you should switch to XML and why should you adopt DITA as your structure.

Then again, you might not. You may be one of those people plugging away with your traditional desktop publishing system without ever thinking of changing. Perhaps you are one of those who has been lulled into a false sense of stability by doing the same thing, the same way you always have, and using the same ‘ole tools.

What you don’t realize is that the business world around you has been rapidly changing and either you keep up or you get left behind.

In this web session, we will discuss the major reasons why it is becoming more and more critical for businesses to consider moving away from the old desktop systems to solutions that embrace XML.

We will talk about:

• What XML brings to the table
• How XML helps you get control of your content production processes
• How companies can actually achieve more with less by adopting XML
• Why it makes sense that DITA should be the basis of your solution

About the Speaker

Julio Vazquez is currently an information architect with SDI. Julio is a key principle who has designed and implemented publication solutions for various SDI clients. He uses his knowledge of technical communications, information architecture, previous publication experience, and investigatory skills to determine information solutions that best fit a client’s needs.

In his previous career with IBM, he was on the corporate team that defined DITA and wrote the first article on the language in April of 2002. He has presented at STC-Carolina, DITA East and DocTrain West and DITA North America on various topics. His first book on DITA, Practical DITA, presents an approach to understanding how to write using DITA from the ground up. He has also published a paper about indexing in the Center for Information Design Management (CIDM) Best Practices Newsletter and is a contributor to the Yahoo! DITA User’s Group, a founder of the RTP DITA User’s Group and a staunch DITA advocate.

Julio Vasquez, SDI

Note

This meeting will be held online. You must RSVP to receive the GoToMeeting invite: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/798824482. After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

Acknowledgements

This meeting is brought to you by the SF Bay Arbortext PTC/User Group.

We want to thank Wolters Kluwer for supporting our organization and community-focused programs.

We want to thank Single-Sourcing Solutions for coordinating our meeting logistics, administration, and for providing access to their GoToMeeting resources and conference bridge facilities.