XMetal Author 7.0

[chandan7891]

Hi Dareek

We have hear that the xmetal is going to launch xmetal author 7.0 … We would appreciate if the fact is true can you give the date when it is launching and what are the extra features that we will going to provide because now as i have written earlier that our contenta is integrated with xmetal author 5.5 and We are like to upgrade our version but we come to know that xmetal is launching xmetal 7.0 sooner …if it is true then we will like to have the updated version with our contenta…and we will push our vendor accordingly…..

Your suggestion is very much important…
 

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[gcrews]

I'm hoping for dita 1.2 out of the box.

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[Derek Read]

Current plans suggest we should have something by summertime.

DITA 1.2 Authoring
DITA 1.2 will be included out of the box (with support for older versions likely to be included but not turned on by default).

We are currently providing, to anyone that requests it, a copy of a “[url=http://forums.xmetal.com/index.php/topic,747]DITA 1.2 Configuration Kit[/url]” that adds support for authoring to DITA 1.2 to installations of XMetaL Author Enterprise 6.0. The 7.0 release will build further functionality on top of that by adding first class support (ie: specific UI functionality to aid in editing) for much of the important new features of DITA 1.2. With the “DITA 1.2 Configuration Kit” any elements new to DITA 1.2 must be marked up by adding elements and attributes “manually” using the Element List and Attribute Inspector, so we're at par with other XML editors at the moment (we don't make it harder or easier to author than they do). However, making this new DITA 1.2 stuff “easy” to work with is one of the main goals for the new DITA functionality that we're working on.

Other Cool Stuff
Quite a few other significant improvements are being made to the product, most of which will not be specific to DITA but will also be useful for authoring to any DTD or Schema (of particular interest to partners, but also clients that have their own custom schemas, special customizations, etc). As usual, bug fixes for many client-identified issues will be included as well. I hate to be secretive about this stuff, but we have some competitors that seem to be “getting inspiration” from some of our implementations. If you would like to contact us via XMetaL Support or through our Sales team we might be able to tell you more.

64-bit Windows 7
We currently only officially support 32-bit versions of Windows (XP, Vista and Windows 7). Our 7.0 release should support 64-bit Windows 7 though, so if you have plans to move to 64-bit machines then that might be a major compelling factor for you. Installing and running the product on 64-bit Windows 7 installations is not really an issue at the present time — provided you install the product using Windows 7 “[url=http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx]XP Mode[/url]”. This is an added bit of overhead that we would like to eliminate for our clients however, so we are testing and adjusting the software to install and run properly without it.

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[gcrews]

Can I ask when xmetal might incorporate a newer version of the toolkit? will it be 1.5.2 or 1.5.3? It seems as though in the future to be able to handle dita 1.2 the toolkit that comes with xmetal is going to need to be updated at some point. It looks as though DITA-OT 1.5.3 is set to support dita 1.2 but its not going to be finished until mid year it looks like http://dita.xml.org/node/3101

Somehow I don't think its going to even be possible to migrate customizations though. Maybe some css files and stuff but ant scripts and xsls are not going to migrate very nicely. I have been tempted to start using a newer version of the toolkit but it seems like there are some significant amount of modification xmetal has made to the toolkit that would be lost though.

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[chandan7891]

Hi
thanks for your update but are looking for giving split window functionality…..also in the 7th edition….

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[Derek Read]

No, not if this is the same feature you asked about previously. There are no plans to do that on any schedule.

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[gcrews]

Current plans suggest we should have something by summertime.

Any timeframe update on this?

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[kwag_myers]

Yeah, what up? I've been seriously considering putting XMetaL on a VM with XP.

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[gcrews]

Is there even a Beta version yet?
The maintenance Package page (http://na.justsystems.com/content-support-policies-packages ) says that being part of Beta programs is covered user the maintenance. Has there ever been a beta program before? Will there be one for 7 before it’s generally available? I would like to be able to preview it and be able to find and resolve any major issues.

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[Derek Read]

We are planning a beta program for XMetaL Author Enterprise 7.0 but our betas are normally limited to XMetaL partners. This allows them to test and make modifications to their own code if necessary (where they have customized XMetaL or integrated their software with XMetaL) and to provide detailed feedback on specific features.

I don't know that we will be opening the beta to clients this time around, but if you are really interested you may contact XMetaL Support to see if the people running the program are able to accommodate you.

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[mkaatman]

Just checking in for an update. The last I heard was this month.

Would also like to request that future versions are less dependent upon administrator access.

Thanks!

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[Derek Read]

If you need XMetaL Author Essential 7.0 it is shipping as of this week (http://na.justsystems.com/releases-291). Contact our sales team.

XMetaL Author Enterprise is built on top of Essential (extending its functionality for DITA, CMS support and other things that all need to work together) so it takes longer to release. There is no fixed date but “this quarter” is still what we are aiming for.

I'm not sure what you mean by “administrator access”. If you mean that the software can be run by a “limited user” then that support has been in the products since the 5.x releases. If you mean something else please let me know.

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[gcrews]

That’s excellent news, can’t wait to start working with it 🙂

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[gcrews]

Is it known what toolkit version XMetaL 7 will ship with? DITA-OT 1.5.4? Will the xmfo plugin be included?

I would like to get started trying to migrating our custom toolkit code.  I have a feeling though I am going to have to customize the toolkit from the ground up again. We have about 600KB of custom xml and xsl files though.

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[Derek Read]

From what I can tell we will be including 1.5.4 (released this past December). That is the version we are currently testing with.

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