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Compose for Web, looking for config info

m1879
1-Visitor

Compose for Web, looking for config info

I'm using Arbortext Editor with Styler 5.3 M130. I am looking for info
on configuring the tri-pane HTML output from Arbortext Editor (File >
COmpose > for Web), and I'm not finding much. Where would be a good
place to find out how to do things like the following:

- Split up XML topics into HTML pages
- Getting the left-pane TOC to work (it's blank except for a non-working
search box)

Are these Styler items? DCF config items? Something else?

Thanks,
Mark
3 REPLIES 3
pchateil
7-Bedrock
(To:m1879)

We had to customize web export from a DITA environnement.
We were using Arbortext 5.4 M090, but basics should be the same.

Chunking (splitting into HTML files) was set in a styler stylesheet.
Most of the resulting output (TOC, frames) was set in custom framesets

To set a custom path for css and graphics, we modified comp_web.acl
found in packages/tools
You will need to copy it to custom/scripts

We wanted an onload attribute on the body tag and never found
where to create it, so we added acl code in comp_web.acl to open
each HTML file after composition and set the onload attribute.

Pierre

Hi Mark & Pierre--

Actually, there are significant differences between 5.3 and 5.4 in how
you configure HTML chunking.

In 5.3, you can also customize HTML chunking using the dbchunk.xml file.
The original version of this lives in $ARBORTEXT/Editor/composer. Copy
it into $CUSTOM/composer, and then you can edit it.

In this file you can specify which elements define chunk boundaries,
content of the HTML header for each chunk, body attributes, etc. Using
the file is described in the online help, see "help 1290" (at Arbortext
command line).

In 5.4+, everything is controlled via Styler. For each element that
defines chunks, go to the Breaks tab in Styler, click the HTML
Chunking... button, and set Chunk Boundary to Yes. You can also specify
how the HTML filename is derived, and insert metadata on a per-chunk
basis. However, I also didn't find an easy way to specify body
attributes via Styler. (I think an upcoming release of 6.0 is going to
add a lot more flexibility in terms of how HTML elements are generated
from Styler, so keep an eye on those updates and check the release notes
if that's something you'd want to use.)

The TOC is also controlled by these two mechanisms (dbchunk.xml in 5.3,
Styler config in 5.4).

Customization of the look-and-feel of the resulting frameset is
controlled by customizing the frameset. Start by copying the default
frameset you want to modify (found in $ARBORTEXT/framesets) into your
custom directory in $CUSTOM/framesets. Give it a new name, and then
modify the frames, CSS, etc as you like.

Good luck, Mark, and happy customizing!

--Clay

Clay Helberg
Senior Consultant
TerraXML

m1879
1-Visitor
(To:m1879)

Thanks Clay and Pierre for the information. You got me moving again on this.

Mark

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