Resolving Property Values
When you are creating or editing a stylesheet, it is often necessary to review the cumulative affects of your property settings. As changes are made to an element's properties, Arbortext Styler filters each source of change and displays the resolution in the property tabs. The resolution process involves:
• Identifying the values that affect the selected context, condition or property set. The order of precedence is as follows:
1. Output specific properties
2. Output specific property sets
3. Base properties
4. Base property sets
• Determining whether the properties are explicitly set or derived.
• If the properties are derived, determining the source of the derivation.
When you place your cursor within an element in a document associated with the stylesheet open in Arbortext Styler, Arbortext Styler selects the matching context for the element. The element icon and matching context are highlighted in green in the Elements list, along with any conditions that the element meets.
In Arbortext Styler, contexts can be fully or partially resolved. If a context is partially resolved, properties that are set to inherit their value from an ancestor of the current context will not show derived values, but will display the text <Derive>. In this case, Arbortext Styler is displaying the value for the context or condition but without reference to its element ancestry. Arbortext Styler cannot display values for some properties on the property tabs.
When a context is fully resolved, Arbortext Styler can carry out the following actions to ascertain a property value:
1. Determine the conditions that are true for the element, allowing the property tabs to display values from matching conditions that override the context's values.
2. If the selected context does not have a value set for a particular property,
Arbortext Styler can derive that value from the context's ancestor. If a property cannot be derived from an ancestor (refer to
Deriving Property Values for information),
Arbortext Styler applies the property's default value.
When a context's properties are fully resolved, the property tabs display the settings that will be used for the element selected in the Arbortext Editor document when the document is published.
The Sets tab differs from the other property tables when resolving conditions. As an example, suppose an element context uses property set A, and has a condition that uses property set B. When the condition matches, both property sets will be applied, as if the context referenced property set A and property set B. The Sets tab, however, shows the context's property sets usage.
Example: Resolving property values
This example illustrates the difference between partial resolution and full resolution of values on property tabs.
1. Open Arbortext Editor, and open the transport.xml document located at Arbortext-path/samples/styler.
2. Choose > . Arbortext Styler creates a stylesheet with entries for all the elements in the document type.
3. In Arbortext Styler, locate the para element in the Elements list, expand it, and select the para everywhere else context.
Refer to the Font tab. It displays the unresolved values for the context by displaying the phrase <Derive> in each unresolved field.
4. In Arbortext Editor, click in the para element within the abstract element at the top of the document. With your cursor still in the document, switch to the Arbortext Styler window.
The para everywhere else context is selected in the Elements list, and the resolved values for the context are displayed on the Font tab.