Setting custom Open XML metadata - openxml

Background
Custom properties in Open XML are stored in docProps/custom.xml and look like this (for a string):
<property fmtid="{xxxxxxxx-xxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}" pid="2" name="Key">
<vt:lpwstr>Value</vt:lpwstr>
</property>
The Open XML (v1) specification doesn't give many details about fmtid and pid. It merely states in section 7.3.2.2:
[PID] Uniquely relates a custom property with an OLE property
Questions
I have a few questions about the specification's vague explanation:
What are OLE properties?
Is it possible add a new OpenXML property in custom.xml without storing an OLE property?
Does pid need to be unique per fmtid, or unique for all fmtids in custom.xml
Why don't my own properties in custom.xml appear in Word?

I'm going to partially answer my own question based on what I discovered by experimenting.
OLE properties are NTFS extended attributes that are stored in alternative file streams. They can be viewed or modified with DSOfile.dll. See this StackOverflow question.
Custom properties can be added by modifying custom.xml. They will only appear in Word's properties dialog if the fmtid belongs to Word or a loaded COM add-in.

Related

DITA: reuse the same text multiple times with different variable setting for each instance

I'm working on a document where, among other things, I need to explain two units that are very similar. I want to reuse text in both descriptions, but I want to use the name of the units in the shared text, and to configure a form of substitution/variable so the name of the units appear in each description. Note that the description of both units appear in the final document.
We're using a structure like this:
top.ditamap, which includes:
units_a_and_b.ditamap, which includes:
unit_a.dita
unit_b.dita
and then this file with text snippets:
unit_a_b_shared.dita
unit_a.dita and unit_b.dita will conref text snippets from unit_a_b_shared.dita.
So basically I want unit_a_b_shared.dita to contain something like this:
"When you configure DOODAA to ..."
and then I want DOODAA to be replaced with unit_a inside the unit_a part of the document, and with unit_b inside the unit_b part.
I've tried to use keywords for this, but so far without success. I haven't found a way to make them take on different values in the different files, even when using keyscopes as explained here:
https://blog.oxygenxml.com/keyscopes/keyscopesBlog.html
The problem seems to be that with keyscopes I need the full path, which includes which unit it is, and hence cannot be used in the text snippet which is shared. Without keyscopes the first definition of the keyword applies everywhere.
Any suggestions on how to achieve this goal (using keywords or not)?
I wrote that key scopes article on the Oxygen XML Blog and I think that key scopes seem to be the answer for your case.
So the "unit_a_b_shared.dita" file would have inside a something like:
<p id="reusablePara">some text before <ph keyref="unit"/> some text after</p>
And then in the DITA Map you would refer to ""unit_a_b_shared.dita"" in different key scopes and re-define the key "unit" in those places to bind it to a different value.
The DITA Map would need to look like this:
<map>
<title>Main</title>
<topicref href="unit_a.dita" keyscope="unitA">
<keydef href="unit_a_b_shared.dita" keys="reusables"/>
<keydef keys="unit">
<topicmeta>
<keywords>
<keyword>KM</keyword>
</keywords>
</topicmeta>
</keydef>
</topicref>
<topicref href="unit_b.dita" keyscope="unitB">
<keydef href="unit_a_b_shared.dita" keys="reusables"/>
<keydef keys="unit">
<topicmeta>
<keywords>
<keyword>KG</keyword>
</keywords>
</topicmeta>
</keydef>
</topicref>
</map>
and inside "unit_a.dita" you would conkeyref to the reusable paragraph inside the "unit_a_b_shared.dita" file:
<p conkeyref="reusables/reusableParagraph"/>
Note that I'm using "conkeyref" not "conref". Once you get to use key scopes you should avoid direct links or direct content references, use only indirect linking using keys.

Word VSTO Get the default save location set by Office URI scheme

I am creating a new Word document from a template using the Office URI scheme with the nft command using the 'Optional Command argument 2' to set the default save folder.
Is it possible to retrieve the value of this default save folder from VSTO?
I have searched properties of the FileSaveAsDialog, properties of the ActiveDocument, properties of the Application, the CustomXmlParts in the document, and even investigated some WordBasic.FileNameInfo properties to see if it could be found there, but so far without success.
Take a look at the Options.DefaultFilePath property which returns or sets default folders for items such as documents, templates, and graphics.

Can exams2moodle export additional metainfo such as idnumber and tags?

When I export the xml file of a multiple choice question, it contains the following lines:
<idnumber>arbitrary_id_set_by_user</idnumber>
<answernumbering>ABCD</answernumbering>
<tag></tag>
Is there a way to add idnumber, answernumbering and tag to the metainformation section of the question so that r-exams can export to moodle XML as <idnumber>idnumber</idnumber>,<answernumbering>ABCD</answernumbering>, <tag>tag1</tag>, and <tag>tag2</tag> etc?
The <answernumbering> tag can be set in exams2moodle() via the answernumbering= argument, see ?exams2moodle. The reason for this is that this is set in the same way for all exercises in a quiz. This is more consistent than setting it individually and potentially inconsistently in the meta-information of the different exercises.
The <idnumber> tag appears to be used by Moodle only for internal purposes. It is also not mentioned in the official Moodle XML documentation at https://docs.moodle.org/311/en/Moodle_XML_format. Hence we did not implement it in exams2moodle().
The <tag> is currently not supported in exams2moodle() because we felt that it would be more important to have tags in the Rmd (or Rnw) exercise itself and not the Moodle version of the exercise. For structuring the content on the Moodle side the exsection meta-information can be used, see boxhist for a worked example.
Finally, you can add arbitrary metainformation by using the exextra tag. This is used, for example, in the essayreg exercise template. However, there is no general way of using this extra metainformation to insert additional XML code in the exams2moodle() output. To do that, the source code underlying exams2moodle() would have to be adapted correspondingly.

Columns Layout export

Sparx Enterprise Architect offers the possibility to define custom layouts for list views in the package browser and to save these definitions. When exporting a Project file (*.eap) via xmi, these definitions are not included in the export-file and thus lost. I wonder whether there exists a way to transfer columns layout definitions between two EA-Projects.
Many thanks in advance for every hint!
As Geert suggested the layout is stored in the registry.
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Sparx Systems\EA400\EA\OPTIONS]
holds a key PKG_BRWSE_LAYOUTS with the comma separated list of profile names (so you better don't use comma in your profile name ;-).
The detailed information is stored in
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Sparx Systems\EA400\EA\EA1200Workspace\BCGPGrids\EA_ELEMENT_LIST_<name>BCGPGrid-0]
where <name> is the according profile name.
For a sample layout here they looked like
"Columns"=hex:11,00,01,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,01,00,00,00
"ColumnWidth"=hex:11,00,16,00,00,00,04,01,00,00,50,00,00,00,50,00,00,00,50,00,\
00,00,50,00,00,00,50,00,00,00,50,00,00,00,50,00,00,00,50,00,00,00,50,00,00,\
00,50,00,00,00,50,00,00,00,50,00,00,00,50,00,00,00,50,00,00,00,50,00,00,00
"ColumnOrder"=hex:08,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,06,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,0d,00,\
00,00,0e,00,00,00,0f,00,00,00,10,00,00,00
"Groupping"=hex:00,00
"LastFieldChooserPos"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00
"IsFieldChooserVisible"=dword:00000000
"IsFieldChooserThemed"=dword:00000001
"SortColumns"=hex:00,00
I have to leave that to you to decipher the coding used here. But for a pure ex-/import you probably don't need to do that.

How to use TableViewer in WindowBuilderPro?

I have to create a table in my wizard page and I want to create it using TableViewer. I'm using WindowBuilderPro for designing my wizard page. The TableViewer control is available in the palette of WindowBuilderPro but I'm not getting how to use it properly.
Has any body used the same?
Thanks a lot in advance!!
You have two ways of filling the TableViewer with contents (similar to TableViewers in JFace):
You can define a content provider and a label provider manually. A content provider has to return a set of Objects, that represent each line of the table; while the TableLabelProvider translates the returned objects to texts in the columns. The content and label providers are to set in the Properties box on the left. In this case, the resulting code should look like the following snippets: http://wiki.eclipse.org/JFaceSnippets#Snippet001TableViewer or http://wiki.eclipse.org/JFaceSnippets#Snippet007FullSelection.
On the other hand you could define JFace Data Bindings to fill the table with contents. In this case you have to define a corresponding binding, that returns the list of all contents; additionally you have to create a label provider, that works similar to the previous one.
There is also a way to fill the table content using a newer API then supported directly by WindowBuilder: you could create TableViewerColumns, and ColumnLabelProviders for each column, thus resulting in much nicer code for Label Providers (and also this API is newer, so it should be preferred for new JFace based code) - but in this case you have to create your code manually. See the JFace Table tutorial from Lars Vogel.
Additionally, if you don't know the JFace Viewer framework from before, I suggest reading the first few questions listed in the JFace FAQ to gain a better understanding of the ideas (and the tutorial from Lars Vogel is also nice for this reason).