External Tools Preferences

The External Tools preferences panel is opened from menu Tools > External Tools > Configure....

A command-line tool can be started in the Oxygen XML Editor user interface as if from the command line of the operating system shell by selecting it from the External Tools drop-down list in the Tools toolbar. The tool must first be configured in the External Tools preferences page.

Figure: The External Tools Configuration Dialog

The configuration dialog includes the following options:

• Name - The name of the menu entry corresponding to this tool that will be displayed in the Tools > External Tools menu and in the External Tools drop-down list in the Tools toolbar.
• Description - The description of the tool displayed as tooltip where the tool name is used.
• Working directory - The directory the external tool will use to store intermediate and final results. Here you can use one of the following editor variables: ${cfd}, ${pd}, ${oxygenInstallDir}, ${homeDir}, ${system(var.name)}, ${date(pattern)}, ${xpath_eval(expression)}.
• Command line - The command line that will start the external tool. Here you can use one of the following editor variables: ${homeDir}, ${home}, ${cfn}, ${cfne}, ${cf}, ${currentFileURL}, ${cfd}, ${cfdu}, ${tsf}, ${pd}, ${pdu}, ${oxygenInstallDir}, ${oxygenHome}, ${frameworksDir}, ${frameworks}, ${ps}, ${timeStamp}, ${uuid}, ${id}, ${afn}, ${afne}, ${af}, ${afu}, ${afd}, ${afdu}, ${ask('message', type, 'default_value')}, ${dbgXML}, ${dbgXSL}, ${env(VAR_NAME)}, ${system(var.name)}, ${date(pattern)}, and ${xpath_eval(expression)}
• Show output messages - When this option is checked all the messages emitted by the external tool are displayed in the Results view. You can edit the following options:

  • Output encoding - The encoding of the output stream of the external tool that will be used byOxygen XML Editor to read the output of the tool.
  • Output content type - A list of predefined content type formats that instructOxygen XML Editor how to display the generated output. For example, setting the Output content type to text/xml enables the syntax coloring of XML output.

  When this option is unchecked only the error messages are displayed.

• Error Encoding - The encoding of the error stream of the external tool that will be used byOxygen XML Editor to read this error stream.
• Shortcut key - The keyboard shortcut that launches the external tool.