User Interface

The MetaTool user interface is your gateway to streamlined document development. This user interface is designed to enhance your interaction with the tool, providing a seamless and continuous overview of the entire document development process. The interface is organized into various distinct sections, each tailored to simplify and optimize your workflow. Get ready to experience efficiency and clarity like never before as you navigate through the intuitive design of the MetaTool interface.

This is the standard layout configuration. All panels are movable and can be re-docked as needed. If you misplace or disrupt the layout, you can easily reset it to the default settings. Additionally, you have the option to lock all panels to prevent any unintended adjustments

MetaTool Ribbon - tabs

The MetaTool Ribbon is located at the top of the MetaTool window, providing easy access to all functions in one place. The ribbon is organized into tabs, with each tab grouping related functions under headers: Home, Edit, Preview, Solution, and Show. This design replaces the old menu and toolbar system, offering a more convenient and faster way to access commands that were previously hidden under menus. This chapter provides a quick reference, while more detailed information on most commands can be found in a separate chapter.

Ribbon - Home tab

Ribbon - Edit tab

Ribbon - Preview tab

To preview the current document, select the Preview tab from the ribbon and click on the Preview, or click on the Preview icon on the Quick access toolbar. It will open the preview tab if not already opened, this will make common preview actions available. See below for a detailed description.

Ribbon - Solutions tab

A solution database makes it possible for more than one user to work at the same meta logic construct, called projects. See chapter Solution for more information.

Ribbon - Show tab

Show ribbon tab, lists different panes that can be shown or hidden. Some panes are defaulted to tabbing panes but can be placed as separate panes if desired. An unchecked box means it will be hidden.

Properties

To see and change properties for MetaTool click on Home/Properties… see below.

Preferences

To see and change preferences for MetaTool click on Home/Preferences…, see below

Global find

To search for and find all matching items in current Metalogic file click on Home/Global find…, when pressed the following dialog is shown, see below

Document - view

The document view gives you an overview over your documents.

To create a new document, you simply right click in the Document field and select New…

Note: The dialog box is the same as for Add and Change, apart from that in Change you can not change the name of the document.

Document - properties

Current document

The main object in MetaTool is the Document. The document pane displays the structure for the active document.

In the Current document view you build the structure of your document. If you click with the right mouse button on the upper folder, you will see what you can add/create on the root level.

On top there are two arrows to move objects upwards or downwards in the tree. Select the current object and click at the appropriate arrow. You can also drag and drop the objects directly within the tree.


Icons under Current Document Pane

These icons can be seen in the current document.

Current document - context menu

In the Current document view you will get a context menu by clicking on the right mouse button. The context menu may look differently depending on what the user click on, Text, Reference, Command, Script, Table and Page template, but the differences are very minor. If any item is greyed then it is currently not allowed for the object type selected.

Here follows a description of the meaning of each item that can be shown on a context menu:

Previewer

The previewer will continuously present the look of the current document. The previewer supports quick development of documents since the developer can easily see the effect of any additions/changes to the document in real-time.

The previewer will display resources by marking the area they contain when selected in the previewer. The resource selected in the preview is also shown in the current document view. By double-clicking on a resource area in the previewer, it then opens the resource in the object’s resource editor.If an error exists in any resource, an error window is displayed underneath the previewer. See below for an example. By double-clicking on the error line, the resource that has an error is opened.

To preview the current document, select the Preview tab from the ribbon and click on the Preview, or click on the Preview icon on the Quick access toolbar. It will open the preview tab if not already opened, this will make common preview actions available. For more information to the Preview tab, see chapter User Interface, Ribbon - Preview tab.

Print document

To see what the composed document will look like in a specific output format, select a defined output format. A suitable viewer must exist or it cannot be viewed. To create a printable output from the current document, select File/Print, CTRL+ P or the Print icon on the tool bar.

Generic list dialog

This is the main list dialog used to populate all different document items. It will be started from the ribbon Edit tab or when you use right mouse button click in any of the different panes in the main window.

The dialog box offers the option of full item search in all the input items to easily find the items you are looking for.

Page templates

A page template decides the page width, height, side margins, in- and output tray, duplex or simplex printout, if the first page is to be a front page and the space between the table columns.

To manage or add Page templates that are going to be included in the documents, select either Edit/Page templates … or access the Page templates list through the “Current document item” dialog, which can be opened from the “Current document” view’s context menu. See chapter Generic list dialog

Style templates

If your company has a graphic guideline document in place, much of the work is facilitated since you then can adhere to a (hopefully) first-rate basic template.

You also ought to consider how you want to arrange the page indexing within the document. There is e.g. an option to have the text as page index included in the paragraph formatting.

To manage or add style templates that are going to be included in the documents, you select either Edit/Style templates… or use right mouse button click when working in a text. See chapter Generic list dialog

If you select Add or Change you have the option to set properties for a new form template or change the properties of the current form template.

Sample, character: Change button

Sample, paragraph: Change button

Texts

To add texts that are going to be included in the documents, you select either Edit/Texts… or use right mouse button click in the text view. See chapter Generic list dialog .

The MetaTool editor is not a WYSIWYG editor and it uses the font selected for the editor, only “Arial” and “Courier New” can be selected. Since these fonts do not support the symbol they cannot be displayed. If a symbol is copied from outside and pasted into the editor. It will initially display the symbol since the symbol “contains” the symbol and its font, but after the text has been saved and re-opened it will no longer display the symbol. The reason is that the “contained” font for the symbol has been removed when saved and only the codepoint, its numerical value, is kept. To further confuse the matter if the codepoint, its numerical value, do not exist in the font used by the editor then it will only be displayed as a blank character.

Since the editor isn’t WYSIWYG the characters displayed are not a representation of the real one displayed when formatted. The editor uses a fixed, non symbol, font for display so obviously the characters are displayed as a regular font and not a symbol one. However, the editor displays the font quite correctly when you paste a symbol font from for instance world but is displayed with the editors fixed font when reopened again. It could be quite confusing however if the codepoint is missing for the editors font as the character now will be displayed as a mere blank.

When converting an older MetaLogic file, a version prior to Unicode support, a special conversion is done for characters that have symbol codepoints to make certain that the codepoint is correct when to Unicode.

Preferences for the editor

Keyword dialog

In the fields you can enter keywords associated with the text. You will get autocomplete help entering keywords based on earlier keywords entered in other texts.

The autocomplete is case insensitive and will return the first entry it finds in the autocomplete list. However, keywords saved will keep the case as they were saved. Metatool will give a clear warning if a keyword exists in a different case than the one entered.

Metaforce warmest recommendation is to have a clear understanding what keywords to use before entering them in Metatool…

Functions for editing text

Right click in the text window and select Insert. A popup window with several choice of format commands will show up

Keyboard shortcuts

Formatting commands

This chapter will describe the supported formatting commands that can be used to control a text presentation. It is recommended to add a Style command at the beginning of each text, since each texts inherent the style definition before it. This behaviour of adding a style at the beginning of each text makes certain that the text uses the correct style settings.

Style

Defines the type face, format, size, and paragraph setting, like justification, line spacing. See chapter Styletemplates. See below for an example.

[_Format Normal_]

Variable

Define variables that will have certain properties and are often used in MetaWrite for forms. See chapter Variables.

Script

Makes it possible to add script controlled result to a text and adds additional flexibility to a text. See chapter Scripts. See below for an example.

[_Script R_GetInvoiceRowCount_]

Table

Is used to structure the page layout, and are often used to create repeatable output like order list. See chapter Table format. See below for an example.

[_TableBegin Total_]
[_TableCell_]
[_TableCell_]
[_TableEnd_]

Phrases

Used to support multiple languages. See chapter Phrases. See below for an example.

[_Phrase Phrase_001_]

Chart

Add Business charts, like a PIE chart. See chapter Charts. See below for an example.

[_Chart Offert_]

Common properties for Barcode, Line, Rectangle, Textbox and Image

Example

If a textbox has the ”take page height” checked then it will adapt itself to previous texts positions, its vertical value should have the value of ’-1’ (Y=’-1’). The text following the textbox will be placed after according to the area size of the textbox.

This is a text that will create an area of 50*20mm and will flow according to previous texts and also affect the next texts.

[_TextBox CX='50' CY='20' ItemType='TextBox' LW=" Radius=" SpaceX=" SpaceY=" Static='N'
TakesPageHeight='Y' X='-1' Y='-1'_]
Your text goes here...
[_TextBoxEnd_]

Barcodes

Example of a result in the text window:

[_BarCode Attr='Price' CX='1' CY='10' CodeType='Code128B' Static='N'
UC='N' X='10' Y='10'_]

Where Attr= holds the data variable name

Tab settings

Define tab stops. Tab stops can be used as simple tables. Tab stops are dependent on left/right margins. All tab stop values should be defined from the left margin, i.e. Tabs=‘20;30;’ means 20 mm from left margin and 30 mm from left margin. The default tabular value (Def=‘10’) is relative to the previous tabular stop and used to calculate the tabular value when the tabular position is undefined

Example :

[_TabSet Def='10' Tabs='20;30;'_]

Vertical distance

Adds vertical space in mm. It can be used instead of linebreaks since linebreak space depends on the active style and therefore is not always the best way to add space in text.

[_Space Height='10'_]

Line

Note! If both height and width are other than zero, can even be negative values, the result is a diagonal line. A form can be used to find out the width and height of a line by using the form’s line draw tool.

Example of a result in the text window:

[_Line CX='30' CY='' LW='1' Static='Y' TakesPageHeight='N' X='10' Y='10'_]

Rectangle

Note : Can not be used with Metawrite

Example of a result in the text window:

[_Rect CX='30' CY='30' LW='1' Static='Y' TakesPageHeight='N'
X='20' Y='20' {Corners CoBL='0,2' CoBR='0,2' CoUL='0,2' CoUR='0,2'}_]

Textbox

Create an area where text is to be positioned. The position of the text area can be outside the page margins. The text in a textbox can be rotated. For a description of Take page height, see chapter Texts - Common properties for Barcode, Line, Rectangle, Textbox and Image.

MetaWrite: Replacebox checkbox makes a text replacable for a saved document in Dynamo by using a MetaWebService call. See MetaWrite document for more information. Note! If to be used in MetaWrite/Word the Textbox will only be a placeholder with a given static postion, size and text. No other settings are respected.

Many other formatting commands can be included in a textbox but only a few can include a textbox, eg. Columns, and Phrases. Be aware that when using TextBox in combination with MetaWrite and WebEditor the result is not always the same as when creating ondemand-documents as the nature of a TextBox as to place items statically. This goes against the nature of the dynamic formatting in the document body part of a MetaWrite and WebEditor! Be sure to test the result thoroughly before deploying your document logic to production…

When you have set height of the textbox (other value than -1) the textbox will truncate all text and data written outside the height of the textbox

Example of a result in the text window:

[_TextBox CX='150' CY='30' Conditional='' ItemType='TextBox' LW='1' Radius='0,2'
ReplaceBox='0' SpaceX='' SpaceY='' Static='N' TakesPageHeight='Y' X='25' Y='-1'_]
Content
[_TextBoxEnd_]

Image

See chapter Image. Example of a result in the text window

[_Image Excludes='' OverlayName='AcmeRGB' Static='N'
TakesSpaceHeight='N' X='-1' Y='-1'_]

Vector object

See chapter Vector object. Example of a result in the text window:

[_Canvas CX='15' CY='15' Name='VectorID' Static='N' TakesSpaceHeight='N' X='-1' Y='-1'_]

Columns

Splits the text into the number of columns specified until Columns end is found. The columns can be weighed to balance the text in each column.

Example of a result in the text window with columns NOT weghted:

[_Columns ColSpace='3' Cols='2' LW='1' MinColHeight='' RunningBreak='N'_]

Example of a result in the text window with weighted columns:

[_Columns ColSpace='3' Cols='2' LW='1' RunningBreak='Y'_]

Column end

Example :

[_ColumnsEnd_]

Table of contents

Collects all levels defined for the TOC until the end of document processing. The levels collected are the levels defined in a style template definition. For example H1.

For Paragraph.. enter Index level 1, 2, 3.. depending of your choice.

Open the first text object that shall be picked up by the TOC and right click to select Insert Table of Contents.

[_Toc NoColWidth='10' TextColWidth='160' UseLevels='4' UseSectNo='0'
{Level Style='Toc1' }
{Level Style='Toc2' }
{Level Style='Toc3' }
{Level Style='Toc4' }_]

You need a script to reset your TOC. Place it in the top of the document structure. Below you can see an example.

Line Break

Creates a new line. If used in a style-template that have bullet-list enabled it will then also create a new line with a bullet symbol. Hot key is Shift+Enter.

[_¶_]

Line break (soft)

Creates a new line. If used in a style-template that have bullet-list enabled it will then only create a new line that is indented according to the bullet-list definition. Hot key is Ctrl+Enter.

[_«_]

Paragraph break

Initiates a paragraph break. It will lead to a line brek with all the attributes defined in the current paragraph. The behaviour of applying all the paragraf attributes (not just the bullet) is what differs a Paragraph break from a regular Line break

Be aware that when using the Paragraph break in combination with the WebEditor the result will be a new text item after each Paragraph break (very much like a separate Text in the document logic tree). The result will differ in the WebEditor compared to generating a document from the same template as an ondemand or batch document. This difference will not be changed due to historical reasons.

[_§_]

KeepOn/KeepOff

KeepOn: Start keeping text together. If the text composition makes a text break the whole paragraph is moved to the following page.

[_KeepOn_]

KeepOff: Ends keeping text together.

[_KeepOff_]

Auto Generated Values

MetaEngine supplies a number of auto generated values. They can be used to display page numbers, section numbers etc. All generated values begin with an AutoValue tag. These auto generated values cannot be queried by a script.

These tags should not be used in texts with the the pagaragraph’s ‘Indent’-property set to anything but zero, as this will be messed up when the document engine recalculates the text when the document has been split into pages and the pages are counted.

Document page

Returns the page number. If used in conjunction with the WebEditor do not put this tag in an editable part as it will not work!

[_AutoValue Value='DocNum'_]

Document number of pages

Returns the total number of pages in document. If used in conjunction with the WebEditor do not put this tag in an editable part as it will not work!

[_AutoValue Value='DocCount'_]

Section number

Prints the section number. If no active section exist or if it is the first created section a number 1 (one) is printed. If used in conjunction with the WebEditor do not put this tag in an editable part as it will not work!

[_AutoValue Value='CurrSect'_]

Section page

Prints the section page. If used in conjunction with the WebEditor do not put this tag in an editable part as it will not work!

[_AutoValue Value='SectNum'_]

Section pages

Prints the total number of pages in the active section. If used in conjunction with the WebEditor do not put this tag in an editable part as it will not work!

[_AutoValue Value='SectCount'_]

Start colleting content

Starts collecting the specific content

[_ContentCollectionStart Adress_]

End collecting content

Stops collecting the specific content.

[_ContentCollectionEnd_]

Languages

Language is used in multiple scenarios:

• Phrases - to select the correct phrase language

• PDF/UA - to set the language for the PDF file

• WebEditor, InsertPoints and TextLibrary - to ease up and set the language when selecting a text to insert in the WebEditor from the TextLibrary

Create Language Id

Select Language

Remarks: Formatting rules for CURRENCY, SHORTDATE and LONGDATE can be used to suppress the original behavior of these data types. It’s also advisable to use these when running MetaEngine on a Linux platform, as the results from getting system formatted values will differ from Windows and Linux and thus will produce different results on the Windows development platform and the Linux backend.

Phrases

Phrases make it possible to translate document texts, words and phrases into two or more languages. You set up your phrases for each document with a unique Phrase Id.

Create Language Id

See chapter Language

Valid usage of Phrases

The valid usage of a Phrase is that it can be included in a Text.

The supported objects in a Phrase are:

• Styles

• Variables

• Scripts

• Tab settings

• Vector objects

• Linebreak (hard and soft)

• Paragraph break

• Document page and Document number of pages

• Section number

• Section page and Section pages

Script methods

Two functions are associated with Phrases. They are:

SetPhraseLanguage(CurrentLanguage, DefaultLanguage);

and

vPhrase = GetPhrase(PhraseID, Language);

See chapter Scripts - Miscellaneous methods.

Textchoice (Intended to be used with MetaWrite and WebEditor)

When creating Microsoft Word and WebEditor documents there is a function in the MetaTool that lets the end user select between texts. This is called Textchoice… To add texts that are eligible to be included in the documents, you select either Textchoice… or use the right mouse button click in the document view. Then connect the texts to the textchoice. See chapter Generic list dialog.

Textchoice Radio group (classic behavior, works in both Metawrite and WebEditor)

The first text in the group will always be preselected, while the others will be selectable. Only one text can be selected at a time. It is not possible to view any of the texts in the MetaTool preview. To see the result, use the print function combined with DOCX.

Textchoice CheckBox group (new behavior, works only in WebEditor)

No text is preselected, and all texts are selectable. It is not possible to view any of the texts in the MetaTool preview.

Using textchoice with printed documents

It’s possible to make the first text in a textchoice to be printed when using a channel configuration other than DXML (as used by MetaWrite and WebEditor). This behaviour will be activated by setting the attribute ShowFirstTextInTextPart=“1” in either “metaengine.config.xml” or in SpecialSettings of separate channel configurations (including ‘EMF’ for preview). Setting it in “metaengine.config.xml” will activate it on all static drivers.

Note:

• If running batch with multiple outputs the ShowFirstTextInTextPart=“1” in “metaengine.config.xml” should be used. SpecialSettings on the channel configurations will not work.
• ‘ShowFirstTextInTextPart’ is supposed to be used in either “metaengine.config.xml” or in the print configuration. Mixing between the two ways may give unpredictable results.

Process formatting commands

This chapter will describe the supported formatting commands used in Metaforce Process handling that can be used to control input and write protection in Word document.

Content control…

Used to create input field in Word. Opens dialog to enter default text for the input field and optional label.

Write On/Write Off

Write On: Starting point for editable area in the Word document.

See manual MetaWrite manual.

[_WriteOn_]

Write Off: Ends keeping editable area in the Word document.

See manual MetaWrite manual.

[_WriteOff_]

The behaviour of WriteOn/WriteOff is different in the WebEditor compared to MetaWrite as WriteOn/WriteOff is scoped in regards to selectable texts. Say for instance that the document template has a mandatory text that sets WriteOn. Right after follows a selectable text (or textchoice text) that sets WriteOff. The last WriteOff is scoped to the selectable text. Texts that follow the selectable text will inheriate WriteOn from the text before the selectable text. This will hopefully lead to a clearer understanding of WriteOn/WriteOff.