Blanking ditamap values

[gcrews]

This is a very frustrating issue. Any time you try and change an attribute on a topicref in the “Topic Reference Properties” to a blank value after it has been set to a value the change doesn’t stay. Exactly what this topic is about: http://forums.xmetal.com/index.php/topic,248.msg754.html#msg754 except it seems to be with any attribute in the dialog box.  This seems to me as a major bug that needs to be fixed. It’s caused my headaches for us as you don’t have a clue what something’s not outputting right and you thought you cleared that attribute. The only way to clear the attribute is to go to xml view and clear it.

XMetaL Author Enterprise – Version#: 5.5.0.266 Service Pack 1

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[Derek Read]

I'm guessing at the steps you are performing and cannot reproduce the problem.

Tested with the following attributes running XMetaL Author Enterprise version 5.1.1.021:

collection-type, scope, type, format, linking, include-in-toc, print, and chunk

Can you please specify which version of XMetaL Author Enterprise you are running and detail the steps you are performing?

My guess:
1. Open a DITA Map in “XML View of Map” that contains at least one element.
2. Double click on a element. The “Topic Reference Properties” dialog opens.
3. On the “Special Attributes” tab make a change to one of the values, by either selecting it and deleting it with the Delete key or by selecting an empty option from a dropdown.
4. Click the “OK” button to dismiss the dialog.
5. Look in the Attribute Inspector or switch to PlainText view to confirm that the attribute has been deleted.

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[gcrews]

we are using XMetaL Author Enterprise – Version#: 5.5.0.266 Service Pack 1

I just tested it in the “XML View of Map” and it doses seem to work properly. The issue is when  using the “Topic Reference Properties” in the Map Editor View witch is what we mainly use.

1. Open a DITA Map in “Map Editor view” that contains at least one element.
2. Select a map item and click the “properties…” button. The “Topic Reference Properties” dialog opens.
3. On the “Special Attributes” tab make a change to one of the values, set any of the items to a value.
4. Click the “OK” button to dismiss the dialog.
5. Open the “properties…” again and the setting is correctly changed.
6. Now set that value to blank and click “OK”.
7. Open the “properties…” again and you can see the setting was not saved.

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[Derek Read]

Using these steps I can reproduce the issue in the Map Editor. TagsOn or Normal view (as in my test) does not have the same issue so that's the best workaround I can think of.

I'll check to see if this is in our bug tracker and if not it will be added.

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[Derek Read]

Good news is that this does not seem to be an issue with the 6.0 release (which is not quite ready).

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