Question about XIncluded objects

[ptc-953926]

Adepters:

We use XIncludes extensively for all topics in our custom schema (and, no, we are not using DITA). By default, when you open an entire book, all of the XIncludes are expanded inline. Usually, this is a good thing. However, some of our books have thousands of XIncluded objects and it takes 20-30 minutes to open. I've searched the Help extensively looking for some way to not expand the XIncludes authomatically during an open - but have failed to find any help.

Does anyone know of a method for doing this? I would like to have a preference that says, "Don't expand XIncluded objects inline". Then, you could selectively expand those you need to see and edit.

Thanks,

Dave
Siemens

* Using Arbortext Editor 5.4, latest patch.

[ClayHelberg]

Hi Dave--



This is one of those things where you just have to know the name of the
thing you're looking for. Try this:



set expandinclusions=false;



HTH



--Clay





Clay Helberg

Senior Consultant

TerraXML

[ptc-953926]

Thanks, Clay. That definitely caused my XIncludes to not expand. Unfortunately, it appears to be pretty much useless as AE won't pass check completeness without them expanded (doesn't see the referenced objects). There also doesn't appear to be any way to selectively expand them (it's all or nothing, apparently).

Dave

[ClayHelberg]

If you want to expand/collapse individual objects, you can do so by
putting the caret inside the included content (or the xi:include markup
if it's suppressed) and selecting View->Included object.



--C



Clay Helberg

Senior Consultant

TerraXML

[ptc-953926]

Thanks again, Clay. The biggest issue now is that AE reports parsing errors when the XIncludes are not expanded (and worse, sometimes inserts missing elements!) since that markup does not conform to the schema. Since we wouldn't consider allowing writers to author with context rules disabled, this ability to not expand XIncludes seems pretty much useless. So, I think we'll live with the slow opening of a book.

Dave

[ebenton]

I don't know what version of Arbortext or Windows you are using, but *theoretically* you might be able to improve this performance with 64-bit Arbortext 6.0 on a 64-bit version of Windows 7.
In case you want to spend the time and money.

[bibach]

One option might be to implement your own switch, using the
entity_path ACL callback to override the resolution of the Xincludes
so that, when switched "off", a "shell" with just enough markup to
pass the completeness check is returned.

The function in Editor to toggle the expansion of an individual
Xinclude would have to be replaced, having the customization maintain
a list of individual includes to expand and figure out some way to
force Editor to "re-expand" one that has been toggled, possibly by
double-toggling the existing mechanism.

-Brandon 🙂