Copy and paste error in eval version 6.0.1.030

[shaneMD]

When I cut and paste from a web page or Word, I get a message that Internet Explorer has stopped working with an option to Close Program. This is followed by a Server Busy dialog with an option to Switch to... or Retry. The dialog closes after a while and the paste appears in the XMetaL doc. Wazzup?

[Derek Read]

I haven't seen this before. Perhaps others have?

Can you let us know the following so we can try to set up an identical machine to test this?

1. Windows version and service pack if any (XP SP3, Vista SP1, Windows 7)
2. Internet Explorer version (full number please)
3. Is this English Windows or another language?
4. If you see MSXML listed in your Control Panel's "Add or Remove Programs" dialog please click on "details" and grab the version from there as well.

Converting HTML into DITA is fairly complex, requiring a few levels of manipulation and we have quite a few pieces involved in that process.

5. If you are pasting a bulleted list does it get inserted as a list (<li> element) in XMetaL or does it get inserted as multiple paragraphs (<p> elements)? The latter would indicate that the transformation process has ultimately failed and XMetaL is falling back to pasting the just the text, which it then has secondary logic for (to insert a <p> for each section separated by a carriage return).

[gcrews]

Just a thought, Is the word file on a network drive or on a Sharepoint server? Perhaps having it saved locally would change the behavior.

[shaneMD]

Replies:

1. Windows Ultimate 7, 64-bit (XMetaL running in compatibility mode for Windows XP - Service Pack 3).
2. Internet Explorer version 8.0.7600.16385, but use Firefox 3.6.4 as default browser
3. English Windows
4. Two versions of MSXML 4.0 SP2 (KB954430 and KB973688)
5. If you are pasting a bulleted list... I was pasting text only but I tried an ordered list and I get the same sequence of messages, plus a message about "unable to create object" then a paste of the list into a table.

Word file is local (no server). Paste works ok from a text file.

[Derek Read]

I was worried you might say 64-bit. We aren't supporting 64-bit yet so I have no means of testing that at the moment. I'll add a note to our test cases to make sure QA looks out for this when they start testing 64-bit.

Minus the 64-bit requirement I can try to see if I can reproduce this with everything else. One thing I neglected to ask was which version of Word you have. That might have something to do with it, but it might also be something else (IE 8 or one of the MSXMLs).

Good thing is that it sounds like this is an annoyance (though it sounds pretty annoying) and not a total failure situation.

Pasting from a text file is not going to have this issue because that does not require any conversion. We look for two versions of what you have copied onto the clipboard. If HTML is present then we try to do a conversion, if just text is present (as with a copy from Notepad for example) then we're just pasting text with no conversion. When we convert from Word we grab the HTML that Word puts on the clipboard, we assume it is invalid HTML (most of the time it is) so we clean it up using HTML Tidy, then convert that HTML to DITA.

[gcrews]

1. Windows Ultimate 7, 64-bit (XMetaL running in compatibility mode for Windows XP - Service Pack 3).

If i remember correctly compatibility mode in win 7 is just a vm system. That could potentially be the issue to with copy and pasting between the virtual PC.
Also, is this XMetaL author enterprise? The current link takes you to a download of 6.0.47 but installs 6.0.0.122 (unless the file has been updated since i last looked but the file name stayed the same) wonder where 6.0.1.030 is coming from. I vaguely remember the 030 from earlier XMetaL 6 release but youed think the version number would increase and not decrease in the second segment number.

[shaneMD]

Yes, XMetaL Author Enterprise.

I've de-selected compatibilty mode for XP and open as normal. Different behavior when trying cut and paste.

- Get window 'message strManipulateStyleInformation' and IE opens.
- Click OK in message window and paste is done.

Using MS Office Word 2007 (12.0.6535.5002) SP2 MSO (12.0.6535.5002) Version 6.1.7600 Build 7600.

64-bit OS is our company baseline so prefer not to rollback to 32-bit.

The XMetaL installable downloaded from http://www.XMetaL.com/_download/xm60ee/xm60ee.exe, access keys provided by Sarah Draper (sarah.draper@JustSystems.com).

I'm about to renew eval for another 30 days. Do you suggest I try the version available on the JustSystems website? I've got to produce product release notes as a POC for the eval and need to work fast!

[shaneMD]

Topic heading wording should be "copy and paste!"

[Derek Read]

6.0.1.030 is the current (most recent) release.

I'm not sure trying another version is going to correct the issue as I have yet to reproduce the issue as described with 6.0.1.030 (the one you are running). You would need to contact our sale people to  obtain an older release.

[gcrews]

Good to know there a newer version, how are users supposed to find out when new releases are out? It would be nice to be able to stay on the current release so we don’t run into issues that may have already been solved. Or is it preferred to just update when there are major releases?

[Derek Read]

I believe our marketing and sales departments are making regular announcements.

They may have communicated the release of 6.0.1.030 only to select clients as this release is almost identical to 6.0.0.122 apart from some improvements to the XMetaL Reviewer functionality (which requires the XMetaL Reviewer server to see).

[cdybdahl]

I've de-selected compatibilty mode for XP and open as normal. Different behavior when trying cut and paste.

- Get window 'message strManipulateStyleInformation' and IE opens.
- Click OK in message window and paste is done.

I am seeing this behaviour as well, when copying and pasting from Word docs to XMetaL.

Edit: I am also seeing the behaviour when copying and pasting from XMetaL to XMetaL.

Details:
Windows 7, 32bit
XMetaL Author Enterprise 6.0.0.79
Word 2007

The IE window in question points to the following location:
C:\Users\e1034169\AppData\Local\Temp\HTMLImportResourceMGR.htm

It is a blank browser window, and a new instance opens every time I paste anything. It's not a huge issue, but there is a bit of a productivity hit when migrating large documents over to DITA.