Ordered List bug in XMetal interface

[linjinwei]

I'm not sure if it is suppose to be like this.

When u create ordered list within ordered list in XMetal, the image is what it appears




But when I output in PDF, it becomes like this;




See the difference? XMetal interface displays in numbers for nested list, while PDF output shows in alphabets. I would like to know how you make XMetal display the same way as in PDF output.

Thks in advance

[mag3737]

This is not a bug.  As noted elsewhere, the display in XMetaL and the results in the PDF (and HTML) output are all from different stylesheets, and it is the stylesheets that determine things like the type of numbering that appears on ordered lists.

[mag3737]

1. Locate the following CSS file in your XMetaL program files directory:

{XMDIR}\Author\DITA\XACs\ditabase\ditabase-base-override.css

2. Save a backup copy of the CSS file and open the original in an editor.

3. Add the following at the end of the file:

Code:

[class~="topic/ol"] [class~="topic/ol"] {
list-style-type: lower-alpha;
}

4. Save the CSS file and then reopen your XML document in XMetaL (or switch views, e.g. switch between Normal and Tags On).

NOTE:  This should give you alphabetical items for any ordered lists that happen to be descendants of any other ordered lists, regardless of what other elements may be present.  I have not looked at the behaviour of the default PDF stylesheets, so I do not know if this is the exact same behaviour.

[linjinwei]

Thks mag3737.

It works now

[linjinwei]

By the way, there are lots of files in XMetal directory.  Can anybody tell me what is the different between these 2 files.

Code:

ditabase-derived - C:\Program Files\XMetaL 5.1\Author\DITA\XACs\shared

I used this file to add and customize my own elements.

Code:

{XMDIR}\Author\DITA\XACs\ditabase\ditabase-base-override.css

No idea what it does since it has nothing inside.

[mag3737]

The CSS files for DITA are explained in the XMetaL help file, in a topic called "DITA stylesheets".  It's under the section "Working with DITA".

As noted in that help topic, it is preferable for you not to use the ..."derived" files because those may potentially change (and your changes get lost) when you upgrade XMetaL.  The ..."override" files are intended for this purpose.  (And they have nothing because when you first install XMetaL of course you have not changed any CSS yet.)

[linjinwei]

So if there are any new styles that I want to add, I should do it in the ditabase-base-override.css?

[Derek Read]

Please refer to the following topic in XMetaL Author Enterprise's help:
"Overriding base formatting"

Even though it is a subtopic inside "Working with DITA specializations" most of the information applies to the "standard" (non-specialized) DITA DTDs as well, that is, everything except "{$specialized_dtd}_ditabase-specialized.css".

If you really need to dig into this (which would probably be helpful to understand what is going on) you can open the following file as it is the main one that loads the CSS files. Note that they are imported in a specific order because normal CSS cascading rules (W3C) apply in XMetaL just as they do in a browser.

C:\Program Files\XMetaL 5.1\Author\DITA\XACs\ditabase\ditabase_ditabase.css