The Manuals Machine Author/Editor

The Author/Editor lets you create, compose, edit and integrate XML pages that conform to the Standard Document Type. It also enables you to create Carrier Pages for other types of content.

You open the Author/Editor from within the Reader. It can operate only on Volumes situated on a local or network file system - you can't edit Volumes located on web servers, because The Manuals Machine is browser-based and subject to the usual domain security rules that apply to web pages.

You can switch between Reader and Author/Editor mode at any time. The Author displays a number of additional frames into which the various forms and controls are loaded as you need them. When you change to Author Mode the Reader morphs to the extended form; you can then choose and freely switch between the Author/Editor and the Administration Tools. These two screenshots illustrate the change that occurs. The normal Reader Mode is shown at upper, Author Mode at lower: the Viewer Panel is split and the bottom part is allocated for use by Editing Forms an area for selection controls is shown to the right of the Viewer Panel an Authoring Control Panel is shown at lower right The navigation methods remain unchanged, and all pages have their normal appearance until selected for editing. To edit a page you navigate to it, then click a control in the Authoring Control Panel to switch to an Editing View. The Editing View displays controls to the right of every page component, so all the Blocks and invididual Elements that form the page become identified and selectable. These editing controls can be seen at the right of the Viewer Panel in the lower screenshot: the larger ones select blocks, the smaller controls select for editing the individual elements within a block.

Reader Mode After switch to Author Mode

The Editing Interface

In the Editing View selection controls are positioned beside every page component, so Blocks and individual Elements such as paragraphs, bullet lists, and images become selectable. Clicking the selection control for a component displays it in an Editing Form, which is shown in the area below the Viewer Panel. The form enables all aspects of the element content and its properties to be worked on. Change as required then click Apply, and the Editing View is immediately updated for review. After all required changes are ready the page can be saved back to the Volume.

Editing Forms are provided for each of the elements in The Manuals Machine Standard Document Type - all of the wordprocessing constructions are covered. The selected element can also be switched between the Form View and an XML View, in which you can see and work on the element's underlying XML. For constructions that can contain repeating subcomponents, such as bullet lists and tables, the Editing Form is supplemented by a full-screen editor for easy review and re-ordering of content. For HTML elements, which enable 'escape' to sections of display-ready XHTML, there is full-screen WYSIWYG preview of the section being edited.

Element Editing Forms

Whenever XML or XHTML is edited directly, real-time validation of 'well-formedness' is performed for every keystroke. And prior to saving the updated page, the document is always passed through a stylesheet which tidies up the indentation and filters any non-permitted internal markup that may have been introduced into standard element types through direct editing of the XML source. This is a great help for authors who prefer to code the underlying XML content directly in some situations.

The Editing View displays any customisation that may have been provided for the Volume, including specific CSS styles, and XSLT templates for rendering of user-supplied element types and table layouts.

Some variations of the Editing View are available for reorganising the Blocks and Elements on a page, with controls for adding, removing, copying and repositioning them. There are also special clipboard functions for copying Elements and Blocks as XML fragments between pages and editing forms, and for selecting extracts from template documents.

Organising the Page within the Volume

When authoring any page you can set and change the rules that define how the page is shown in the Table-of-Contents, Alpha Index and Keyword Index. As explained in How Volumes Work these are stored in the indexing element. Most changes to the TOC are applied when the updated page is saved, but some settings including Alpha Index require the Admin Package Tools to be run. You can also supply titles and synopsis, which usually become effective as soon as the file is saved, though for complex cases (such as multiple TOC entries) you may have to run the TOC Compiler.

Navigation through hyperlinks is also created by the Author. Three types of link can be defined:

• links, which simply replace the current page (similar to HTML hyperlinks)
• locators, which enable linking within a page (similar to HTML name anchors)
• navigators, which enable fine control over positioning and the TOC at the time a new page is selected

Navigators provide some smart features to help the reader, such as resynchronising the displayed TOCs to match the chapter position of the target page.

Integrating Non-XML Content

You can use the Author/Editor to create 'Carrier Pages' for non-XML content, which enable PDFs, images and other types of content to be fully integrated into the Volume, letting you define same TOC, Synopsis and Indexing rules as for XML content pages.

Using Other Authoring Tools

The XML content for the Standard Document Type is fully 'open' and there is no restriction on using any other editor to work on your content pages. Obviously you need to know the details of the XML structure, which are provided in the reference documentation. If you're comfortable with text editing, typos can be fixed and edits performed using Windows Notepad or your other preferred editor, accessed by the standard sequence of 'Right-click, View Source, Edit, Save'. So if you prefer to work this way, you still can.

As soon as the page has been saved it can be viewed using the Reader, or you can reopen then resave in the Author/Editor to get the benefit of schema check, element filters and the XML tidy function.

Help

All authoring and administration functions have help screens - these are selected pages from the User Guides, which are loaded from the internet on demand and displayed in a separate window.

Accessing the Author

You need an internet connection to run the Author/Editor and the Administration Package. All functions are loaded from the internet when required - there's nothing to install, and you always get the latest version.

To use the Author/Editor you must be using the HTML Application version of the Manuals Machine Reader (MM1.hta), and your Volume must be situated on a file system to which you have read/write access (it cannot be on a web server).

There some constraints on the author's capacity if you are using an unregistered copy of The Manuals Machine - notably the size of tables and bullet lists that can be worked on, and the size of TOC and Alpha Index that can be compiled. When you register we send you a registration file which removes the limits, and also provide access to support. Registration may require payment of a fee.

If you need a standalone copy of the Author/Editor (for example to use when travelling and offline) you may apply - but you must already be a registered user.

For more information refer to Distribution and Licensing.