Inline XML Editor Integration (Authentic)

[a5sk4s]

After some back and forth, I've been able to successfully integrate Authentic as an inline editor for XML.

There are a few questions/concerns though that I would like to discuss.

Unfortunately, I couldn't bring Authentic to read the content from the editor <div> on the page - Altova's final answer on why not is still pending.  So I needed a URL to feed it into Authentic during page load.  I couldn't find one in the CheckinCheckoutBean, so I added the getBrowserUrl() method from the DocumentDetailsBean.  This looks a bit like a hack, but works.  Is there a better way?  What are the implications for checkin/checkout doing it this way?

Currently Schema and Stylesheet (SPS) are hardcoded.  I'm thinking to provide them via aspects.  Or is there an architecturally better approach within Alfresco?  I'm open to feedback.

Also, Authentic comes as an ActiveX control and requires IExplorer, but for our current purpose that is fine.

Thanks for any answers.

Andreas

[dafletcha]

Hi Andreas,

I'm also wondering about integrating an inline XML editor. I've been looking at Xopus as the editor, but I know Authentic is free – which is a huge plus.

My company will be using the DITA schema for XML. Will you be using DITA, or your own schema?  Altova doesn't currently appear to be very interested in supporting DITA, which is the reason I've shied away from Authentic so far.

So have been able to get Authentic to open within the Alfresco page? Or do you open a new window for the editor?

I look forward to hearing back from you.

Mark

[a5sk4s]

Mark:

Authentic opens up in an Alfresco page, pretty much the same way the inline HTML editor does - it only supports IE though; schema and stylesheet are hard-coded.  The experiment resulted in two bug reports to Altova.  I also had looked at XOpus and like it's use of XSLT instead of the proprietary SPS format, but it also showed some instability.  They have a new version announced and I will revisit. 

Our use of DITA is still an open question.

Andreas