Romania-based Syncro Soft, developer of the Oxygen XML suite of products, has announced the immediate availability of Version 20 of its XML editing suite of products – Oxygen XML Editor, Author, Developer, Web Author, WebHelp, as well as the new Oxygen PDF Chemistry. Version 20 software brings users a variety of new features and improvements that focus on productivity, performance, efficiency and simplicity, said the company. XML authoring, structured authoring and intelligent content authoring provide different ways to create content, compared to word processing and desktop publishing applications that produce unstructured content. In general, the solutions are easier to use, improve messaging and reduce costs.
New features and improvements in Oxygen XML Editor include:
- The comprehensive DITA validation can report unused keys or un-referenced re-usable components. New DITA re-factoring actions make it easy to re-name keys, extract sections as topics, or convert CALS tables to simple tables. An external DITA-OT can be provided as a plugin, and the DITA PDF output using CSS contains accessibility enhancements.
- The WebHelp Responsive publishing system introduces Oxygen Publishing Templates as a package containing resources that define all aspects of the output – and makes it very easy to use and share customizations. Other enhancements include an improved default layout, image map hotspots that are automatically highlighted, and new components such as the topic table of contents and an expand/collapse sections button.
- Some new add-ons provide additional functionality to create a more dynamic development environment. The add-ons include a Git client, batch converter from Markdown or HTML to XHTML, DITA or DocBook, enhanced DocBook validation, a translation package builder, and a plugin that automatically updates DITA prologue information.
- The XSLT support now includes XPath content completion, search and refactoring in text value templates, documentation for the functions and named templates defined in the current XSLT, improved refactoring actions, and more help when debugging.
- The Schematron Quick Fix support was updated to reflect the latest SQF updates and to provide better content completion and internationalization support.
- An XSpec add-on is available that allows you to run and view XSLT unit test results, re-run failed or specific tests, and to compare expected versus actual results. XSpec was updated to its latest version and now it can also be used for testing Schematron. The XSpec content completion was also improved to offer global parameters, template names, or function names.
- JSON code syntax is now highlighted when embedded in XHTML or in DITA code blocks. JSON also now has better formatting for arrays or you can easily convert to JSON from XML.
- Oxygen PDF Chemistry, the built-in PDF engine based on CSS, was updated to provide better control for page sequences, support for vertical text in page margin boxes, better hyphenation, and the possibility to wrap content anywhere it overflows. Linking to specific sections within the PDF is also now possible using the named destinations support.
- This version includes numerous other improvements, new API entry points or extensions, and many component updates, including new versions of Saxon, Calabash, and DITA-OT.
- Version 20 of the Oxygen XML Web Author is the latest release for the innovative web-based authoring tool. Its powerful technology and adaptive interface allows you to review, contribute, and edit content from anywhere you have access to a browser, on desktops PCs, tablets, or mobile devices. It includes a variety of new features and improvements to make your authoring, collaborating, and reviewing experience more efficient, accurate, and productive than ever before.
New features added in Oxygen XML Web Author version 20 include:
- Web Author can be configured to provide a simplified authoring experience for non-technical users, to make the behavior of the Enter key work similar to that of a standard word processor (and CTRL+Enter would open the content completion window).
- The support for connecting to Git repositories was improved, you can use a master account to perform operations on behalf of any user and you can use pull request workflows even if you have commit rights. The user interface for track changes was improved, accept/reject actions are now easier to access in the Review panel.
