Log File for Track Changes

[linjinwei]

Hi all.

I am sure we know what is important about Track Changes.

But I was wondering if there is actually a log file for Track Changes, like which line is the changes, what are the changes and what time is the change.

If there actually is. where can I find it? or how do I get it? This is necessary for documentation

Thanks in Advance

[Derek Read]

I can tell you for sure there are no features related to this. If you can provide some more detail on what you are trying to do I'd be interested to hear that as we've not had anyone mention this previously, I really cannot even guess what this would be used for.

[linjinwei]

Of course it is important

Lets say we have a document. Then Person A made some changes to it.
When I receive the document, I need to know what, where and when Person A has made the changes.

Get what I mean? In the documenting section, we need to know the changes made.

[dcramer]

The track changes information is stored in the file in processing instructions. You could write an xslt that spits out an html report summarizing the changes made if that's what you're getting at. For example, it might roll up the number and size of the additions and deletions per editor.

Hope that helps,
David

[linjinwei]

How do I write this xslt file?

[mag3737]

There are many, many general-purpose resources on the Internet about XSLT. I'll focus here on a couple of tips that are specifically about working with XSLT in script inside of XMetaL:

1. The "ActiveDocument.xmlWithCT" property returns a string that contains your entire XML document with change-tracking PIs embedded in it. (Most other XMetaL script APIs will strip out change-tracking PIs.)

2. One way to apply XSLT transformations to some XML in script is to use the MSXML object. There are some examples of how that is done in the "multipleoutput.mcr" file that is included in the XMetaL "Startup" folder (inside Program Files). See, for example, the "doSaveAsHtml" function in that file.

NOTE: I have no idea how -- or even if -- you can manipulate PIs using XSLT, or MSXML. My information above is meant to be helpful under the assumption that it is possible.

[dcramer]

With xslt you can find the PIs <xsl:template match="processing-instruction()">, but parsing the content will be up to you. You could grab/be inspired by this template from the docbook xsls: http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current/doc/lib/pi-attribute.html which parses the content of a PI to get the value of things that look like attributes, e.g. in author="dcramer" <?xm-deletion_mark author="dcramer" time="20090211T145246-0600" data="including"?>.

For manipulating the insertion marks, xslt 2.0's grouping features would come in handy.

For learning xslt, Jenni Tennison's Beginning XSLT 2.0: From Novice to Professional would be a good place to start.

David

[Derek Read]

We have a separate product called XMetaL Reviewer that includes the ability to create a report about every change and comment made by anyone reviewing a particular set of files. This is a separate server-based product that adds a very different (and far more powerful) type of reviewing to XMetaL Author Enterprise.

It is also possible to make changes and comments using a web browser (Internet Explorer) so that subject matter experts (who are not authors) can participate without the need to install XMetaL Author Enterprise.

http://na.justsystems.com/content-xmetal-reviewer