Very well defined, Jeff. Hussein and XMLmind: Let me add my +1 voice to this view.
> Well, there is a huge gap between determining the differences between two > different sets of XML (particularly in DITA), and simple tracked changes, and > that is even if we ignore the fact that generating XML marked up with > differencing information and generating output that reflects the differences > as accurately as possible are two very, very different tasks. > > We use DeltaXML DITA Diff to programmatically compare different sets of XML > and mark up the individual files with DITA-compliant change tracking markup; > that is NOT the task we would use Track Changes for in XMLmind. We use > DeltaXML when we want to generate comprehensive diff’d documents for > development teams and customers, and often the document sets run into > thousands of pages and have had dozens of engineers touching them, so there’s > no way we’re doing this by hand. > > In-editor track changes are just a way of allowing an author to keep track of > the changes made in the current editing session, or in the last few editing > sessions; it is author-to-author communication, rather than anything > applicable to generating differenced documents. When an engineer enters a > topic containing a 1000 row table with a dozen pervasive changes s/he needs > to make, it’s very useful to be able to quickly see what you’ve already done > when dealing with the inevitable interruptions of the workday. > > That is the application I see for tracked changes in XMLmind, rather than > serving in any way as the basis for differenced output. > > Jeff. > <> > From: n...@kbss27.be [mailto:n...@kbss27.be] > Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2015 12:13 AM > To: Jeff Hooker > Cc: 'xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com' > Subject: Re: [XXE] Track changes > > 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 before > and after in 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 DITAstatus 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 > <mailto: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> > [mailto: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: 'xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com <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) > <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) > <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 > <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 <mailto:xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com> > http://www.xmlmind.com/mailman/listinfo/xmleditor-support > <http://www.xmlmind.com/mailman/listinfo/xmleditor-support> > > -- > XMLmind XML Editor Support List > xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com <mailto:xmleditor-support@xmlmind.com> > http://www.xmlmind.com/mailman/listinfo/xmleditor-support > <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
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