correct location to place a HTML Help customization

[Wim Hooghwinkel – iDTP]

Hi,

what would be the correct location to place a HTML Help customization – both for XMetaL7 and XMetal8?

Thanks

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[Derek Read]

XMetaL Author Enterprise 6.0 and 7.0

32-bit Windows before toolkit deployment (the installed copy):
C:Program FilesCommon FilesXMetaL SharedDITA_OTdemowebhelp

64-bit Windows before toolkit deployment (the installed copy):
C:Program Files (x86)Common FilesXMetaL SharedDITA_OTdemowebhelp

32-bit and 64-bit Windows after toolkit deployment (the deployed copy):
%appdata%SoftQuadXMetaL SharedDITA_OTdemowebhelp

XMetaL Author Enterprise 8.0

The DITA OT project reorganized some subfolders with their 1.7 release of the toolkit.

32-bit Windows before toolkit deployment (the installed copy):
C:Program FilesCommon FilesXMetaL SharedDITA_OTpluginswebhelp

64-bit Windows before toolkit deployment (the installed copy):
C:Program Files (x86)Common FilesXMetaL SharedDITA_OTpluginswebhelp

32-bit and 64-bit Windows after toolkit deployment (the deployed copy):
%appdata%SoftQuadXMetaL SharedDITA_OTpluginswebhelp

In general, modify the installed copy if the changes you are making will be used by more people than just yourself (people that are consuming your mods). This allows users to redeploy the installed copy that you have modified in cases where the deployed copy is broken for some reason. It is more likely that the deployed copy will be accidentally altered or broken mostly due to the fact that %appdata% is read/write for all users and other software.

Note: If you end up looking for other outputs to modify (other than webhelp) go up one folder then look around for a folder with a logical name. In most cases you will find it. The two that may not be obvious are: “Book via RenderX” = “fo” folder and “XMetaL Enhanced PDF via RenderX XEP” = “xmfo” folder. In some cases you may also need to go up two folders to find the main XSLT driver file for some kinds of modifications.

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[Wim Hooghwinkel – iDTP]

Thanks.

What we did now (XMetal 7, OT 1.6) is add a plugin folder to %appdata%SoftQuadXMetaL SharedDITA_OT1.6plugins . Running integrator makes the customization available. Is that a legitimate way to add a cusomization? We get some error messages and I'm not sure if that is caused by XMetal because it won't support this kind of modification.

Wim

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[Derek Read]

When you generate output plug-ins are integrated automatically.

Running the integrator manually should not cause any problems that I know of, but it should also not be necessary. Maybe if the plug-in itself has issues (something is not “standard”) then that could cause problems.

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