Using keyword variables in topic titles

[jlm05]

We are looking into using keyword variables for easier maintenance of items such as product names and version numbers.

One problem we have run into is that we cannot use the keywords in topic titles. If we do use a keyword in a topic title, the value does not display in the TOC (PDF and WebHelp) or in PDF bookmarks. It does display in the actual topic output.

So if the title is "Using our <keyword>Product Name</keyword>", it shows up in the TOC and bookmarks as "Using our", without the product name value.

Any idea on how to get these to show up in these generated lists?

Thanks,

Janice

[mag3737]

This sounds like a limitation of the DITA OT processing. Have you asked or searched in the Yahoo! dita-users mailing archives?

[gjn2066]

Is this a general ToolKit issue, or specific to TopLeaf?

Geoff

[jlm05]

No, this is not specific to TopLeaf.

After doing some experimenting to replicate the issue, here is what I am specifically seeing:

- In PDF output (from TopLeaf in our case), keyword variables in topic titles do work, EXCEPT if used in a chapter title (top of a unit map).

- In XMetaL WebHelp output, keyword variables in topic titles do not work at all.

Janice

[bencahill]

Has anyone found a solution for this problem?
I am experiencing the same on XMetal Author Enterprise Version#: 10.0.0.074


The XMetal TOC does not show keywords in titles when they are part of a string; e.g. "Using the <product_name>"
If the title is ONLY the keyword, e.g. "<product_name>" then it displays a variation on "Element ID: concept_someString"

The DITA OT dita2xhtml transform causes the same error.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Ben

[Derek Read]

The original issue that started this thread was corrected by the DITA OT quite a while ago, and it isn't an issue in XMetaL Author Enterprise 10 in my testing (which runs DITA OT 2.0 by default) so I think you might be describing a different issue.

Can you explain in more detail what your DITA file looks like (actual DITA markup would be best) and what you are expecting to see in the output?
Is it something like this? -- With the <keyword> portion being the most relevant part here.

Code: (DITA input)

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE concept PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Concept//EN" "concept.dtd">
<concept id="concept_58E59DD450814ADCA030CE0EBC6EA341">
  <title>testing one two <keyword>three</keyword></title>
  <conbody>
    <p>this is a test</p>
  </conbody>
</concept>

Please also provide the markup for the <topicref> from your map as well as that could be affecting what you see in output.

[bencahill]

Thanks for your reply Derek.
It could certainly be because we are still using DITA OT 1.5.2... long story but we have a huge amount of legacy material from a previous doc team that needs to be transitioned over to a newer DITA version.

Although that might not explain why XMetaL is not showing the correct titles.

Code:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE concept PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Concept//EN" "concept.dtd">
<!-- Created with XMetaL (http://www.xmetal.com) -->
<concept id="concept_C77DB38F3225434296BF00434AA3C716">
  <title>Installing the
<keyword keyref="VM_name"><?xm-replace_text DCP Voucher Management?></keyword>
Solution</title>
  <shortdesc>This section details the requirements and process for installing
the
<keyword keyref="VM_name"><?xm-replace_text DCP Voucher Management?></keyword>
solution
  </shortdesc>
  <conbody>
<p>Content goes here </p>
  </conbody>
</concept>

The topicref markup is as follows:

Code:

<topicref format="dita" href="concepts/c_VM_installation.xml" navtitle="Installing the Solution" scope="local" type="concept">

[Derek Read]

Can you describe your setup in more detail?

I'm not sure if this is an editing issue (you say "XMetaL is showing") or output issue. If it is output it sounds like you are running DITA OT 1.5.2 on a server but somehow integrated our WebHelp output into that old version?

However, if you are running 1.5.2 I'm not surprised that it would have issues with <keyword> inside the topic titles as that version is very old. What happens if you generate output from the XMetaL Author Enterprise UI that integrates with DITA OT version 2.0 that we install? ie: Using File > Generate Output... It should work in that case as that is what I'm seeing.

How you would go about patching your old 1.5.2 would likely be tricky, but I guess you could start by doing a diff on the parts of the DITA OT that either do the merging or the HTML-specific outputs and then try to figure out what you need to back-port to 1.5.2.

[Derek Read]

I suspect lack of @keyref support in the DITA OT is the most likely issue here.

[bencahill]

Hi Derek,
We are building everything from the command line with ANT both locally and remotely (with an automated Jenkins job), and not using the XMetaL "Generate Output" at all. Any attempt to do so results in an error, for any output type. This looks to be due to the missing dir  Program Files\SoftQuad.

In Tools > DITA Options, I only have 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 in the Default DITA Version dropdown...

The plan is to create a new environment with XMetaL 10 and DITA 2.x within the next 6 months anyway, so I am just looking for a quick fix for the keyword/titles issue now. If it is not straight-ahead, I can live with it for now.

Thanks again for your help.

[Derek Read]

That setting in Tools > DITA Options is for the authoring functionality only. It allows you to select which version of the DITA DTDs to use and the associated UI we provide for authoring to them. We've added more support as the DTDs change so when you change this value it not only uses that DTD version the UI changes to help authoring to various features of that version, getting more complex with newer versions. This is separate from the DITA OT version.

In XMetaL Author Enterprise 10 the version of the DITA OT defaults to DITA OT 2.0. And in 10 (only) it can be changed to the version we included in XMetaL Author Enterprise 9 (which was DITA OT 1.8). You can do this by commenting out or altering this line in Tools > Configure Output on the Advanced tab:

existing: DITA_OT_DIR  =  %XMETAL_SHARED_ALL%\DITA_OT2.0
altered: _DITA_OT_DIR  =  %XMETAL_SHARED_ALL%\DITA_OT2.0

It seems unlikely that reverting to 1.8 would help though. And you don't care about this, since you are generating output using DITA OT 1.5.2 on your server?

If you do care and can provide some files, I can try to test here I can try to confirm that they do or do not work with the DITA OT 2.0 we install. Sending these by opening a support case through XMetaL Support is best. Please point out the specific markup that is causing issues and what you expect to see in the output too.