Presenting Validation Errors in Author Mode

Oxygen XML Author can be configured to automatically validate documents while editing in the Author mode, and actions are also available to manually validate documents on-request.

Validation issues are marked in Author mode with a colored underline in the editing pane and a colored marker in the right vertical stripe, according to the type of issue. You can configure the color for each type in the Document Checking preferences page.

• Validation Errors - By default, underlined with a red squiggly line in the editing pane and a red marker in the right vertical stripe.
• Validation Warnings - By default, underlined with a yellow squiggly line in the editing pane and a yellow marker in the right vertical stripe.
• Validation Info - By default, underlined with a blue squiggly line in the editing pane and a blue marker in the right vertical stripe.

Hovering over a validation issue presents a tooltip message with more details about the problem and possible quick fixes (if available for that issue).

Information about the issue is also displayed in the message area on the bottom of the editor panel (clicking the Document checking options button opens the Document Checking preferences page where you can configure some validation options (such as the colors used to present the validation issues). Some validation messages include an icon () that provides a link to a style guide or specification.

Also, the vertical stripe on the right side of the editor panel is designed to display the errors found during the validation process and to help you locate them in the document. The stripe contains the following:

Upper Part of the Stripe

By default, a success indicator square will turn green if the validation is successful or if only validation info messages are found, red if validation errors are found, or yellow if only validation warnings are found. More details about the issues are displayed in a tool tip when you hover over indicator square. If there are numerous issues, only the first three are presented in the tool tip.

Middle Part of the Stripe

By default, errors are depicted with red markers, warnings with yellow markers, and info messages with blue markers. If you want to limit the number of markers that are displayed, open the Preferences dialog box (Options ⇒ Preferences), go to Editor ⇒ Document checking, and specify the desired limit in the Maximum number of validation highlights option.

Clicking a marker will highlight the corresponding text area in the editor. The validation message is also displayed both in a tool tip (when hovering over the marker) and in the message area on the bottom of the editor panel (clicking the Document checking options button opens the Document checking preferences page where you can configure some validation options.

Bottom Part of the Stripe

Two navigation arrows () allow you to jump to the next or previous issue. The same actions can be triggered from Document ⇒ Automatic validation ⇒ Next error (Ctrl + Period (Command + Period on OS X)) and Document ⇒ Automatic validation ⇒ Previous error (Ctrl + Comma (Command + Comma on OS X)). Also, the button can be used to clear all the validation markers.

Status messages from every validation action are also logged in the Information view.

If you want to see all the validation messages grouped in the Results panel, you should use the Validate action from the toolbar or Document ⇒ Validate menu..