As for track changes in general, I've concluded over the years that simply turning it on in the hope that the software (any software) will produce usable results … doesn't work :-} I prefer to make sure changes are large enough to comprehend, and then mark them by hand with FM conditions or – when I'm slumming it – Word styles. For heavy reviewing, I'll even present beforeand afterin a two-column table; the ease of review makes up for the extra work.
My real requirement for tracking changes in XXE, as I mentioned before, is to be able to use the DITA status attribute to drive output formatting: to highlight differences in a new version of a publication, I want to be able to say (for instance) "any content tagged with status='new' is output in green". As far as I remember, this wasn't possible out of the box last time I asked; I'd have to roll up my sleeves and tussle with xslt. * is this still the case? * is there any chance colour-coding based on attribute values might be built in in a future version of XXE? On 26 June 2015, Jeff Hooker <jeff.hoo...@pmcs.com> wrote: > Good to know you are still chewing this over. > > The sheer amount of bloat that collects in a Word document with tracked > changes is an indication that Microsoft had a difficult time finding an > elegant way of doing this too. > > -----Original Message----- > From: <xmleditor-support-boun...@xmlmind.com> > [mailto:<xmleditor-support-boun...@xmlmind.com>] On Behalf Of Hussein Shafie > Sent: Friday, June 26, 2015 2:28 AM > To: Jeff Hooker > Cc: <mailto:'xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com>' > Subject: Re: [XXE] Track changes > > On 06/26/2015 03:59 AM, Jeff Hooker wrote: > > > > Before you throw up your hands and say "We've been through this!", > > please give me just a few lines to present an idea to you. > > > > I understand that you think Word-style track changes is unworkable in > > XMLmind for a number of reasons. Ok, in truth I'm not all that fond of > > Word-style change tracking either because of all the noise it adds to > > the authoring window. > > > > However, your current "Compare Versions" feature already has all of > > the features that I'd like to see in "Track Changes", except that it > > needs two different versions of the document to work. If data that you > > encoded in processing instructions at the bottom of the file segmented > > the changes made **by session** > > > The single processing instruction found at the bottom of an XML file where > "Activate Change Detection" > (<http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_distrib/doc/help/changesMenu.html)> > has been activated stores just the serial numbers of the elements of the > document. > > Therefore, implementing your idea is more complicated than you think. > > > > > > then you'd be able to compare the document against other versions of > > itself, and achieve a version of tracked changes that is actually more > > flexible and useful than Word-style tracked changes could ever be. > > > > The fact that an author would need to pause to run a compare in order > > to see what he'd done is, frankly, a detail. The feature would nicely > > fill the differencing gap needed during active authoring. > > > > Just my opinion. > > > > > We share your opinion and had more or less the same idea. > > We would really like to make our "Compare Revisions" feature > (<http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/_distrib/doc/help/comparePane_primer.html)> > usable without the need of storing revisions in a document repository. > > The fact that you also estimate that this would make our "Compare Revisions" > feature more useful encourages us to attempt implementing this idea. > > This being said, 1) we haven't found a simple and elegant way to implement it > yet 2) this new implementation of the "Compare Revisions" > feature is not yet at the top of our TODO list. (We would like to finish > implementing DocBook 5.1 support -- > <http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/addons_doc.html#docbook51_config> -- but > this also depends on the work of the DocBook committee) > > > > > -- > XMLmind XML Editor Support List > <xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com> > <http://www.xmlmind.com/mailman/listinfo/xmleditor-support> > > -- > XMLmind XML Editor Support List > <xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com> > <http://www.xmlmind.com/mailman/listinfo/xmleditor-support> >
-- XMLmind XML Editor Support List xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com http://www.xmlmind.com/mailman/listinfo/xmleditor-support
