DITA Storm browser-based DITA XML Editor
by Inmedius Inc.
  
Edit | Dita
Edit | Dita

Customizing XML Structure - model.xml

Description: This file describes contents of XML structure definition file model.xml

DITA Storm editor is preconfigured to work with DITA XML, but also capable of operating with user-defined XML structure. It could be customized DITA XML or something completely unrelated as XML for invoice handling (see example here).

At this moment DITA Storm does not support direct use of DTD or Schema file to control structure of edited XML document. This has to do with performance and size restrictions of browser-based applications. Instead DITA Storm operates by using XML configuration file similar in nature to Schema but besides description of the XML structure it contains additional information such as user-defined actions and presentation details.

Note: For step-by-step element creation/customizaiton instructions see this section.

For your reference file DITAStorm/config/model.dtd contains DTD defintion of the structure of model.xml.

Reference: model

Description: Root element for entire DITA Storm XML structure definition.

Syntax

<!ELEMENT model (element*,editor*)>

Example: 

<model>
    <element.../>
    ...
    <editor.../>
    ...
</model>

Reference: element

Description: Describes a single element in the set of all elements supported by the editor.

Syntax

<!ELEMENT element (group*,action*,default?)>

Properties

Type Attribute Name Description
string name Name of the element. (E.g. 'section' or 'p')
string title Full name of the element (E.g.'Section' or 'Topic')
true | false addToNewButton Adds element to 'New' button in the editor allowing it to be root element of the edited content. (E.g. for Topic)
string attributeEditor Name of the attribute editor associated with this element. See 'editor' element. (E.g. 'topic' or 'univ-atts').
true | false confirmDelete Enables confirmation on deleting this element. Used primarily on high-level elements such as Section or Topic.
string doctypePublicId Will be used to generate public ID for the element if it gets exported on the top level. (E.g. '-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN' for Topic).
string doctypeFile Used to generate path to the file in DOCTYPE section of the output XML document. This element should only contain file name without the path. (E.g. 'topic.dtd' for DITA Topic).
true | false toolbarOnly Indication to only show element on the DITA Storm toolbar (E.g. for Bold or Italic).
string toolbarHTML HTML snippet to be used on the toolbar to render the element. Element will not be added to the toolbar if this attribute is not defined. (E.g. 'B' for bold).
true | false applyToSelection Indicates whenever to allow element to be 'applied' to the selection. (E.g. set to true for Bold or Note).
character ctrlShortcut If defined sepcifies keyboard key which can be used with Control (Ctrl) key to insert element into the content. (E.g. by default set to 'b' on Bold and to 'i' on Italic element).
true | false enableUnwrap Enables 'unwrap' functionality when element can be replaced by its content. (E.g. by default enabled for Note, Paragraph and Bold).
true | false inline A hint to the editor on how to better format output XML. Inline elements just flow with the text others (block) elements always represent rectangle. (E.g. inline elements are Bold and Quote, block elements are Note and Long Quote).
true | false showPropsOnInsert Makes editor to show property dialog when element just gets inserted (E.g. for XRef and Image DITA Elements).
true | false genericRenderer Makes editor to use 'generic' element renerer similar to the one in Outline mode. Setting this attribute to 'true' disables XSL styles defined for this element.
string helpUrl Location (URL) of the help page for this XML element.
true | false hidden Removes element from Insert menues of the editor but does not prohibit from actually creating or handling an element from XML source or original XML document.
string lock Attribute defining editor-wide lock (or readonly) behavior for all elements of this type. See this section for more information and available values.

Example: 

<element name='topic' 
	title='Topic' 
	addToNewButton='true' 
	attributeEditor='topic'
	doctypePublicId='-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN'
	doctypeFile='topic.dtd'
	confirmDelete='true'>   
  <group allows='title' card='1'/> 
  <group allows='shortdesc'/>
  <group allows='prolog'/>
  <group allows='body'/> 
  <group allows='related-links'/>
  <group allows='topic,task,concept,reference' card='0..n'/>
  <default><![CDATA[<topic><title/><shortdesc/><body><p/></body></topic>]]></default>
</element>

Reference: group

Description: Represents group of childs of enclosing element. Group elements are ordered and can not contain repetitive elements.

Syntax

<!ELEMENT group EMPTY>

Properties

Type Attribute Name Description
string allows A comma-separated list of child elements allowed by this element. The order of the elements is not significant. Order of the groups is. One of the elements could be "#text" which indicates that element could cnotain text. (E.g. for Title: '#text,b,u,i,tt,sup,sub...')
0..1 | 0..n | 1 | 1..n card Cardinality of the elements in the group. 0..1 - group can contain no or one of the elements defiend in 'allows' atttribute. 1 - group should contain only one element from the elements in the 'allows' attribute.
string emptyText Text which will be displayed if element contains no childs. For example 'empty title' when contents of Title element is empty.
true | false preserveTextFormatting Indicates that text formatting needs to be preserved. (E.g. in 'pre' and 'code' DITA elements).

Example:

Lets take for example following DTD definition of the Topic and see how it gets translated to model.xml 
<!ELEMENT topic (title,body?,(topic|reference|concept|task)*)>
here is the equivalent defined in model.xml: 
<element name='topic' ...>
    <group allows='title' card='1'/> 
    <group allows='body' card='0..1'/>
    <group allows='topic,reference,concept,task' card='0..n'/>
</element>

Reference: default

Description: Defines fragment of XML which will be used to populate newly created element. For example for convenience UL should be created with inner LI.

Syntax

<!ELEMENT default (#PCDATA)>

Example: 

<element ...>
  ...
  <default><![CDATA[<topic><title/><shortdesc/><body><p/></body></topic>]]></default>
</element>

Reference: editor

Description: Describes element attributes and provides editor necessary information to organize editing process. Editor can reuse fields defined in other editor by using <fields.../> element.

Syntax

<!ELEMENT editor (fields|field)*>

Properties

Type Attribute Name Description
string name Name of the attribute editor.

Example: 

<editor name="created">
    <field attribute="date" title="Creation Date" type="date"/>
    ...
</editor>

Reference: fields

Description: Imports fields defined in a different editor element with specified name. This can be useful to organize commonly used attributes in the groups for later reuse.

Syntax

 <!ELEMENT fields EMPTY>

Properties

Type Attribute Name Description
string name Name of the attribute editor to be included at this position.

Example: 

<editor name="xref">
    <field attribute="href" title="Hyperlink URL" type="conref"/>
    ...
    <fields name="univ-atts"/>
</editor>

Reference: field

Description: Defines a single attribute editing control. If field is of type 'choice' then 'option' child elements are available to define list of possible attribute values.

Syntax

 <!ELEMENT field (option*)>

Properties

Type Attribute Name Description
string attribute Name of the attribute. (E.g: 'href')
string title Title of the attribute (E.g. 'Navigation Title' for 'navtitle' attribute).
'string' | conref | choice | date | separator type Type of the attribute
number size size of the attribute editing field (applicable for 'string' type)

Example: 

<editor...>
    <field attribute="href" title="Image URL" type="conref"/>
    <field attribute="alt" title="Alt Text" type="string"/>
    ...
</editor>

Reference: option

Description: Describes one of the possible values of attributes/fields defined with type 'choice'.

Syntax

<!ELEMENT option EMPTY>

Properties

Type Attribute Name Description
string title Title of the dropdown value.
string attribute Actual attribute stored in the field.

Example: 

<field attribute="align" title="Alignment" type="choice">
    <option title="" value=""/>
    <option title="Left" value="left"/>
    <option title="Right" value="right"/>
    <option title="Center" value="center"/>
</field>

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Inmedius Inc.