Navigating the Document Content

Using the Keyboard

Oxygen XML Author allows you to quickly navigate through a document using Tab to go to the next XML node and Shift Tab to go to the previous one. The caret is moved to the next / previous editable position. When the caret is positioned in a space preserve element, press a key on your keyboard and then use Tab to arrange the text. You can also arrange the text using Tab if you position the cursor in a space preserve element using your mouse. In case you encounter a space preserve element when you navigate through a document and you press no other key, the next Tab continues the navigation.

To navigate one word forward or backwards, use Ctrl Right Arrow (Command Right Arrow on OS X), and Ctrl Left Arrow (Command Left Arrow on OS X), respectively. Entities and hidden elements are skipped. To position the cursor at the beginning or at the end of the document you can use Ctrl Home (Command Home on OS X), and Ctrl End (Command End on OS X) respectively.

Using the Navigation Toolbar

The locations of selected text are stored in an internal list which allows you to navigate between them with the

Back (Ctrl Alt [ (Command Alt [ on OS X)) and

Forward (Ctrl Alt ] (Command Alt ] on OS X)) buttons from the Navigation toolbar. The

Last Modification (Ctrl Alt G (Command Alt G on OS X)) button automatically takes you to the latest edited text.

Using the Breadcrumb Helpers

A top stripe called breadcrumb indicates the path from document root to the current element.

Figure: The breadcrumb in Editor view

The last element is also highlighted by a thin light blue bar for easier identification. Clicking one element from the top stripe selects the entire element in the editor view. Also, each element provides a contextual popup menu with access to the following actions:

Edit Attributes action which opens the in-place attributes editor.
The Edit Profiling Attributes action allows you to select the profiling attributes that apply to a certain element.
The Append child, Insert before and Insert after submenus of the popup menu allow you to insert new tags in the document at the place of the selected element. The Append child submenu lists the names of all the elements which are allowed by the schema associated with the current document as child of the current element. The effect is the same as selecting an element name from the popup menu offered by the content completion assistant. The Insert before and Insert after submenus list the elements which are allowed by the schema associated with the current document as siblings of the current element inserted immediately before respectively after the current element.
The Cut, Copy, Paste and Delete items of the popup menu execute the same actions as the Edit menu items with the same name on the elements currently selected in the stripe. The Cut and Copy operations (like the display:block property or the tabular format of the data from a set of table cells) preserve the styles of the copied content. The Paste before, Paste after and Paste as Child actions allow the user to insert an well-formed element before, after or as a child of the currently selected element.
The Toggle Comment item of the Outline tree popup menu encloses the currently selected element of the top stripe in an XML comment, if the element is not commented, or removes the comment if it is commented.
Using the Rename Element action the selected element and the elements that have the same name as the current element can be renamed according with the options from the Rename dialog box.

Tip: The tag names displayed in the breadcrumb can be customized with an Author extension class that implements AuthorBreadCrumbCustomizer. See the Oxygen SDK for more details.

Using the Folding Support

When working on a large document, the folding support can be used to collapse some elements content leaving in focus only the ones you need to edit. Foldable elements are marked with a small triangle painted in the upper left corner. Hovering with the mouse pointer over that marker, the entire content of the element is highlighted by a dotted border for quick identification of the foldable area. The following actions are available in the contextual menu, Folding sub-menu:

Toggle Fold: Toggles the state of the current fold.
Close Other Folds (Ctrl NumPad/ (Command NumPad/ on OS X)): Folds all the elements except the current element.
Collapse Child Folds (Ctrl NumPad. (Command NumPad. on OS X)): Folds the elements indented with one level inside the current element.
Expand Child Folds: Unfolds all child elements of the currently selected element.
Expand All (Ctrl NumPad* (Command NumPad* on OS X)): Unfolds all elements in the current document.

Using the Linking Support

When working on a suite of documents that reference one another (references, external entities, XInclude, DITA conref, etc), the linking support is useful for navigating between the documents. In the predefined customizations that are bundled with Oxygen XML Author links are marked with an icon representing a chain link:

. When hovering with the mouse pointer over the marker, the mouse pointer changes its shape to indicate that the link can be followed and a tooltip presents the destination location. Click the link to open the referenced resource in an editor. The same effect can be obtained by using the action Document > File > Open file at caret (Ctrl Enter (Command Enter on OS X)) when the caret is in a link element.

Note: Depending on the referenced file type, the Open file at caret action opens the target link either in the Oxygen XML Author or in the default system application. If the target file does not exist, Oxygen XML Author prompts you to create it.