Documentation Center

Change Tracking Functionality

When change tracking is turned on and you modify a document in your editor, and until you accept or reject the modifications, the editor preserves all of the document's data by wrapping it with special markers that indicate how the data changed. These markers are, by default, special elements.

Below are some Arbortext examples of each type of wrapper; the ellipsis (…) represents the data that was inserted or deleted by the user.
<atict:add user=”rose” time=”1052258957”>…</atict:add> 
<atict:del user=”rose” time=”1052258999”> …</atict:del> 

<?Pub Tag atict:add user="phoebe" time="1115326896"?>…<?Pub /atict:add?> 
<?Pub Tag atict:del user="phoebe" time="1115403481"?>…<?Pub /atict:del?>

In addition to the above point-of-edit wrappers there is supplementary, self-explanatory markup inserted by the Arbortext editor after the root element of the document. Below is an Arbortext example of this change tracking state information. For each user that has made edits a user record is inserted.

<atict:info tracking="on" ref="0" xmlns:atict="http://
www.arbortext.com/namespace/atict">
<atict:user user="phoebe" fullname="Keeter, Phoebe"
xmlns:atict="http://www.arbortext.com/namespace/atict"/>
<?Pub Tag atict:info tracking="on" ref="0"
xmlns:atict="http://www.arbortext.com/namespace/atict"?>
<?Pub Tag atict:user user="phoebe" fullname="Keeter,
Phoebe" xmlns:atict="http://www.arbortext.com/namespace/
atict"?>
The change tracking wrappers and state markup are not visible in the editor interface. However, if you place your cursor over the modified region in Arbortext Editor, a window appears with information about the data stored in the wrappers which includes:
  • User name
  • Time of the modification
  • Type of modification

Arbortext only: Insert, copy, move, and delete are all described by two wrappers; insert and delete. These are the only two functions that the user actually performs when they change the document. For example, moving a SPEECH element from one SCENE to another is actually a delete from the original SCENE and an insert into the new SCENE.