Command-line webhelp build

[cdybdahl]

I have a need to automate the build of multiple versions of webhelp, but before this can happen, I need to be able to build a single version from the command line successfully.

I am using this call after running startcmd.bat from XMetaL's toolkit directory:
java -jar lib/dost.jar /i:"C:\wsdl\wsdl_map.ditamap" /transtype:webhelp /outdir:C:\wsdl\webhelp_out /basedir:"C:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\Application Data\SoftQuad\XMetaL Shared\DITA_OT" /ditadir:"C:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\Application Data\SoftQuad\XMetaL Shared\DITA_OT"

This generates the navigation but fails to copy the individual HTML files over, so that each page in the help system gives a "page cannot be displayed" error.

XML source files are getting copied over into temp, but they are either not being transformed at all or there's some problem writing them to the output directory. Are there some additional/changed parameters I need to be passing to make this work?

[cdybdahl]

So, is this just not possible?

[Derek Read]

It is possible but not something I am able to take the time to document unfortunately. It is not something we have tested and also not something that is officially supported at the moment.

XMetaL Author Enterprise does everything w.r.t. DITA OT at the command line. This is the file that drives that process if you wish to try to decipher it:

C:\Program Files\XMetaL 6.0\Author\DITA\XACs\shared\renditions\print_dita142.xml

XMetaL Author Enteprise includes a basic set of customization files (DTD, CSS, CTM and some simple macros) for editing these types of XML files, so you can open it in the product to view it. Currently this customization is used only by our developers, which is why it is not documented and making changes to it are not officially supported. Basically the stuff you need to look at is in the <bat_content> sections.