Insert/Append > New... Dialog

[sanGeoff]

Win 7 64 bit, <oXygen/> XML Author 17.1.0 Standalone, build 2015111718

I really like the ability to create new files directly from within the map manager and title, name, and insert them at the same time. There seem to be a few gotchas with the dialog though and can be a bit user error prone.

- It seems to always default to the most recently used ditamap template. I think inserting a new DITA topic is more common than a new Map. I can see the design decision in choosing a recently used template, but personally I wish it would force me to select one since half the time i forget change the selection since i jump to title first.

- Numerous times I have typed some title text in quickly or pasted text into the title field in the dialog and then quickly pressed Enter to create the file. The generate file name from title option though seems to lag and does not get fully updated with the new title text in time. Something needs to check and ensure the title/file name has finished synced before the Create file routine triggers.

Also, is there an event handler or some API entry point into the "Use title to generate file name" logic?
I'd like to customized the logic to match our file naming standards.

Thanks,

[mihaela]

Hi,

Thank you for your feedback! I have registered your requests in our internal issue tracker.

Indeed, we should not select any template when presenting the dialog, to force the user to select the correct template.
Also, we will compute the file name when the "Ok" button is pressed to be sure that it corresponds to the title.

Could you please give us some details about the file naming standards that you want to achieve? What is the rule that you want to apply to obtain the file names?

Best regards,
Mihaela

[sanGeoff]

Thanks for responding so quickly and creating a request for the OK and selection issue.

Usually we name files by removing space and camel case the words.
We also add _[C|T|R] to identify the content type.

Naming conventions would probably vary between any company.
An API event handler would probably be the best way to approach this.
Have the title and template as arguments and a return a file name string.

It was more a thought though, might be a nice enhancement to add to the API in the future.

[mihaela]

Hi,

Thank you for your explanation. We will analyze the possibility to add this API in the future and we will let you know if it will be implemented.

Regards,
Mihaela

[sorin_carbunaru]

Hello,

I am glad to announce that in the newly released oXygen 18.1 we added some more options that allow for a more customized file name generation when creating topics from the DITA Maps Manager. The options are all grouped in the File name generation rules for new topics section from the DITA preferences page. More information about the options can be found at https://www.oxygenxml.com/doc/versions/ ... -dita.html.

Regards,
Sorin Carbunaru
oXygen XML