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DITA: Avoid losing your mouse's focus during transform builds

You can reduce any interruptions during your build transforms by toggling some Java settings.

When you initiate a bunch of transformations in OxygenXML, each time Java processes the transform, your mouse loses focus as you see the Java icon appear in your toolbar to start the build and then disappear when it's finished building (at least on a Mac). This can be extremely annoying, especially if you have more than 5 or 6 transforms. You end up just sitting there waiting until you have control with your computer again.

Fortunately, you can stop Java from taking away your mouse's focus. For DITA-OT/ANT transforms:

  1. Edit the transformation scenario (or go to Document > Document Transformation > Configure Transformation Scenario(s) > Edit).
  2. Click the Advanced tab.
  3. In the JVM arguments field, for Macs, add a space after the first parameter, and then -Dapple.awt.UIElement=true. For PCs, add -Djava.awt.headless=true.
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About Tom Johnson

Tom Johnson

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