Hi:
Our writers are using Arbortext 6.1 M060. Is there some setting or customization available to turn off linktext elements when using Preview Link Text for link lists? Selecting Insert Preview Link Text in DITA preferences works fine for xrefs, but not for links in linklists.
The following link structure in link lists is a bug as inserting <? type statements in <linktext> will logically render an empty link in DITA processors like DITA OT, which will then have nothing to link, generating empty Related Topics sections (I have confirmed this):
<link format="dita" href="SomeFile.dita" scope="local" type="concept"><linktext><?Pub _previewtext text="Some Title or Text"?></linktext></link>
This is basically saying "insert emptiness" for the link text as the DITA processor will ignore <? type statements by design.
The form should be without linktext:
<link format="dita" href="c_Customizing_ribbons_and_Quick_Access_toolbars_aw1163702.dita" scope="local" type="concept"><?Pub _previewtext text="Some Title or Text"?></link>
This will allow Arbortext to display preview text to the writer while letting the processor pull the title for the actual link in HTML during build time. The completeness check in Arbortext runs fine using this format.
Obviously turning off preview link text will force the DITA processor to grab the title text for the link at build time, but then our writers will lose the extremely valuable feature of seeing their links previewed in Arbortext while authoring.
Writers should not have to fix this format by hand every time they build a link list, which is actually quite a tricky maneuver in Arbortext. I can set up a pre-build script to strip the linktext in linklists when using text previews, but I would rather not. Linktext should not appear in the first place when using link previews in link lists as linktext with--in effect--empty text makes no sense to processors.
Troy Klukewich
Documentation Manager
Oracle Corporation
