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New features and enhancements in LiveContent S1000D 5.8

This section lists features and enhancements introduced in LiveContent S1000D 5.8.

Enhanced navigation

To provide easier and more flexible access to LiveContent S1000D features, several controls were moved from the main navigation panel to a customizable auxiliary menu you access by clicking the hamburger icon () in the upper left corner of the screen. The following controls are now available on this auxiliary menu.
  • History
  • Applicability
  • Suspend and Resume
  • Attachments

By reducing the number of icons on the main navigation panel, display of publications is enhanced, particularly on tablets and other devices with smaller screens.

In addition, a new Toggle Left Panel icon () has been added to the Top bar banner, allowing you to hide the Auxiliary navigation menu.

For more information about LiveContent S1000D navigation, refer to Exploring the user interface in the LiveContent S1000D documentation.

Multi-language support for XSL styles

This release of LiveContent S1000D includes support for multiple languages in XSL files. This enhancement allows you to display XSL style text values, application control text, and error and warning messages in a language you specify for a collection or IETM.

To enable this enhancement, delivered XSL files have been modified to include variables in place of some previously hard-coded text. For programs that do not require localization, customized XSL files containing hard-coded text values can still be used.

Configuring languages for XSL localization is done in a collection's wietmsd.xml configuration file. XSL localization can be applied to an entire collection or to one or more specific IETMs. When configured at the IETM level, individual IETMs in a single connection can use different languages, allowing flexibility in distributing content in multiple languages.

For more information about multi-language support for XSL styles, refer to Localizing a publication or collection in the LiveContent S1000D documentation.

Support for Saxon Professional Edition

LiveContent S1000D now uses Saxon Professional Edition (Saxon PE) for XSL transformation and XML parsing. This edition offers more robust capabilities, enhanced performance, and greater extensibility than Saxon Home Edition (Saxon HE), which was used by earlier versions of LiveContent S1000D. Saxon PE offers functionality not included with Saxon HE, providing benefits including the following.
  • Improved language support

    Saxon PE provides better language support by more fully conforming with XSLT 3.0, XPath 3.1, and XQuery 3.1 standards.

  • Enhanced performance

    The Saxon PTree binary format enhances performance by improving serialization and re-parsing speeds without requiring significantly more disk space than the original XML.

  • Greater extensibility

    Saxon PE enables greater extensibility by providing access to EXSLT and EXPath extension functions, reflexion (for Java and .NET), Saxon extension basic functions, SQL, XSLT element extensibility, and advanced run-time localization.

  • Improved interface support

    Saxon PE supports additional interfaces, including JDOM, JDOM2, AXIOM, DOM4J, and XOM for the input and output of transformations and queries (Java only). In addition, Saxon PE implements the standard XQJ API for query processing (Java only).

For details about the differences between Saxon PE and HE, including links to descriptions of the advanced features of Saxon PE, refer to the Saxon 9.9 product comparison (Feature Matrix) on the Saxonica web site.

Support for jQuery 3.4.1

LiveContent S1000D now uses the latest version of jQuery to take advantage of its enhanced capabilities.

Support for Google Chrome

You can now access an IETM in LiveContent S1000D using the Google Chrome browser.

SVG graphics support enhancements

The following enhancements have been made to LiveContent S1000D support for SVG and SVGZ graphics.
  • Redlining SVG graphics

    You can now mark up SVG and SVGZ graphics using tools available on the graphics toolbar when such a graphic is displayed in the content panel or in a tear-off page. A new control has been added to the graphics bar displayed when you view an SVG or SVGZ graphic, allowing you to expand the bar to display icons representing redlining tools you can use to mark up the graphic as in the following sample.

    For more information about these redlining tools, refer to Redlining an SVG image in the LiveContent S1000D documentation.

  • Highlighting hotspots

    A new control has been added to the graphics bar displayed when you view an SVG or SVGZ graphic in the main content panel or in a tear-off page, allowing you to display all the hotspots in the graphic (if any exist). Clicking the Highlight hotspots control () temporarily highlights the hotspots in the graphic, providing a way to more easily locate clickable hotspots.

    For more information about this enhancement, refer to Configuring SVG hotspot highlighting in the LiveContent S1000D documentation.

S1000D Support for hotspot links in figure legends

You can now create S1000D-compliant links within a figure legend to hotspots in the related figure graphic. When a user clicks such a link in the figure legend, the associated hotspot in the related figure graphic is highlighted.

Support for hotspot links to another DM

You can configure a hotspot in an SVG or CGM graphic to link to a location in the document section of a different DM. When a user clicks the hotspot, the referenced DM is loaded and the display scrolled to the referenced location.

Customizable graphics labels

You can customize the labels for the graphics in a PDF document or IETM. By default, each graphic is marked with a label reading Fig X where X is the sequential number of the graphic. Using the configuration item image.title_prefix in language property configuration files (such as ..\data\etc\config\resources-english.prop), you can specify text to replace the prefix Fig in graphics labels during XSL FO transformation.

This enhancement gives you more control over the output of content and enables you to localize the graphics labels.

For more information about this enhancement, refer to the following topics in the LiveContent S1000D documentation.

Support for the HTML5 SAP Visual Enterprise Viewer

LiveContent S1000D now supports viewing multimedia content natively in an HTML5 SAP Visual Enterprise Viewer without the need for an SAP plugin, improving browser independence. To display SAP media in the HTML5 viewer, only a supported SAP media file, stored in the figures folder, is required. You can reference such a file as you would any other figure object.

Most functionality of the native HTML5 SAP Visual Enterprise Viewer, including the zoom, rotate, pan, and highlighting functions, is similar to that of the SAP plugin-based viewer. LCS controls for interacting with SAP graphics, such as Play Next Step and List All Steps also work the same way. Differences in functionality between the native HTML5 and plugin-based viewers include the following.
  • Left and right toolbars available in the plugin-based viewer do not appear in the native HTML5 version.
  • Hovering the mouse over a part in the native HTML5 viewer does not cause its name to display as a tooltip as it does in the plugin-based viewer.

For more information about the SAP Visual Enterprise Viewer, refer to SAP Visual Enterprise Viewer in the LiveContent S1000D documentation.

Security banners and content portion marking

You can configure LiveContent S1000D to display a banner showing the highest security classification assigned to any of the content in a publication or DM.

In addition, you can configure the application to display a marking showing the security classification for each individual portion of content (such as a heading, paragraph, or step) within a publication.

If enabled, the security banner for a publication is displayed at the top of the LiveContent S1000D user interface and reflects the security level assigned to the IETM. The security banner for a DM is displayed directly below the navigation panel (above the main content panel) and reflects the security level assigned to the content of the DM.

Security banners are color-coded based on security level. You can customize the color of the banner for a security level by editing the HTML class associated with it. The text that appears in the banner is derived from values defined in the applicable language resource (resources-xx.prop) file, allowing you to edit or localize the text.

This functionality is delivered turned off. To enable it at the application level, edit the collection's wietmsd_prg.xml file. To enable it at the publication level, edit the publication's wietmsd.xml file.

For more information about this enhancement, refer to the following topics in the LiveContent S1000D documentation.

Action complete indicators

You can now configure LiveContent S1000D to add check boxes to the steps in procedure DMs at the application level (affecting all publications), or for a specific publication. A user can select the check box for a step to indicate that the step has been completed. Each time a check box is selected or deselected, that action is recorded as an entry in the audit trail for the applicable document, including the following information.
  • The type of action (checking or unchecking the check box)
  • The number and text of the step on which the action was performed
  • The date and time the action was performed

This functionality is delivered turned off. To enable it at the application level, edit the ietm.show_steps_checkbox configuration item in the collection's wietmsd_prg.xml file, setting its value to 1. To enable it at the publication level, edit the show_steps_checkbox configuration item in the publication's wietmsd.xml file, setting its value to 1.

For more information about this enhancement, refer to Enabling Action Complete indicators .

Warnings and Cautions acknowledgment

You can configure LiveContent S1000D 5.8 to require the user to acknowledge a Warning or Caution before proceeding. The user's acknowledgment of the Warning or Caution is then recorded in the Audit Trail log.

This feature is delivered turned off. To enable it for a collection, edit the ietm.disable_wcn configuration item in the collection's witmsd_prg.xml file, setting its value to 0.

When enabled, this feature causes Warnings and Cautions to be displayed in a pop-up dialog containing an OK button the user must click to dismiss the dialog. A new language resource, ctrl.acknowledge.popup.ok can be added to language resource (resources-xx.prop) files, enabling you to localize the text of the OK button.

For more information about setup required for Warnings and Cautions acknowledgment, refer to Enabling Warnings and Cautions acknowledgment in the LiveContent S1000D documentation.

Viewing S1000D emergency procedures

A new control has been added to the main navigation panel, allowing you to view all the S1000D emergency procedures in a publication. Clicking the Emergency Procedures control () displays all the emergency procedures in the open publication in the left panel.
For more information about this enhancement, refer to the following topics in the LiveContent S1000D documentation.

Viewing session history

A new control has been added to the main navigation panel, allowing you to view the history of the current session. Clicking the History control () on the auxiliary navigation menu displays a list of the data modules visited in current session in the left panel. The maximum number of items in the history list is configurable using a new property, maxLength, in the components.xml configuration file. By default, up to 200 items are displayed.

You can suppress the display of the History icon on the Navigation panel, preventing users from accessing session history functionality.

For more information about this enhancement, refer to the following topics in the LiveContent S1000D documentation.

Support for references in Reason for Update

LiveContent S1000D now supports including a simpleRefPara element within the reasonForUpdate element in an S1000D Issue 4.2 publication, allowing you to include links to updated DMs in the publication's Reason for Update section. Child elements of a simpleRefPara element (such as externalPubRef and dmRef elements) are rendered in the Revision Highlights report as links to the updated DMs.

You can configure the styles applied to externalPubRef and dmRef elements in the links in the ...\etc\FullSupport\etc\skins\Skin_name\templates\skin.css file (where Skin_name is the name of the applicable skin.

Content loading spinner

Because a large DM can take several seconds or more to be displayed, LiveContent S1000D now displays a spinner graphic while a DM loads to show that processing is underway. While the content loads, the LiveContent S1000D window is disabled.

By default, the spinner is displayed beginning one-half second after the user selects a DM for display. You can customize the amount of time before the spinner is displayed by modifying the new loadingMsgDisplayTime property in the appropriate components.xml file. For more information about this enhancement, refer to Configuring the content loading spinner .