A few notes about some default settings for anyone using XMetaL to do work on the DITA spec:
1. XMetaL has an "auto-ID" feature that is turned on by default. It's only for a few selected elements, but we probably don't want these IDs cluttering up the DITA spec. To turn off the auto-ID feature:
1. Tools > DITA Options
2. General tab
3. Uncheck "Auto-assign element IDs"
2. XMetaL "pretty-prints" DITA source code by default. This is harmless from an XML point of view, but problematic for us because most of the source in the DITA spec is currently not pretty-printed. Opening (or more specifically, *saving*) a file in XMetaL makes it difficult to spot your changes in a text-based "diff" view such as the one in the Sourcetree Git client. Because of the white space of the pretty-printing, pretty much every line in the file will have changed.
To turn off the pretty-printing:Â
1. Launch XMetaL as an Administrator (in Windows Explorer, shift-right-click on the icon and select "Run as administrator")
2. Tools > Macros (opens a dialog)
3. Select "DITA Configuration -- Turn Pretty Printing OFF"
4. Click Run
5. Re-launch XMetaL again for the change to take effect
3. The DITA spec is written in DITA 1.3. Ensure that you have XMetaL switched to use the 1.3 DTDs:
1. Tools > DITA Options
2. General tab
3. Select "1.3" from "Select Default DITA Version" combo box
NOTE: The first version of XMetaL that natively supported DITA 1.3 was version 10. (Current version today is 13.) If you are using version 9, please contact me for the "1.3 extension pack" that we made available for use with that release. If you're using version 8 or older, you might just be out of luck for using XMetaL to work with the DITA spec.
mag