Integrating external tools

When your XML project requires to run an external tool different than a FO processor and which can be launched from the command line <oXygen/> offers you the option of integrating the tool by specifying just the command line for starting the executable file of the tool and its working directory. To integrate such a tool go to Options->Preferences+External Tools

If the external tool is applied on one of the files opened in <oXygen/> you should enable the option for saving all edited files automatically when an external tool is applied.

 Integrating the Ant tool

As example let us integrate the Ant build tool in <oXygen/>. The procedure for this purpose is:

 

  1. Download and install Ant on your computer.

  2. Test your Ant installation from the command line in the directory where you want to use Ant from <oXygen/>, for example run the clean target of your build.xml file C:\projects\XMLproject\build.xml: ant clean

  3. Go to Options->Preferences+External Tools

  4. Create a new external tool entry with the name Ant tool, the working directory C:\projects\XMLproject and the command line "C:\projects\XMLproject\ant.bat" clean obtained by browsing to the ant.bat file from directory C:\projects\XMLproject

  5. Run the tool from Tools->External Tools->Ant tool. You can see the output in the Command results panel: 

        Started: "C:\projects\XMLproject\ant.bat" clean
    Buildfile: build.xml
    
    clean:
    [echo] Delete output files.
    [delete] Deleting 5 files from C:\projects\XMLproject
    
    BUILD SUCCESSFUL
    Total time: 1 second
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