About targets and conductor files

The Output Generator build files, also called the conductor files, contain the Apache Ant targets that direct the final output processing.

A conductor file is a standard Ant build file that contains one project and at least one target.

Note: This procedure assumes that you have some knowledge in programming Ant scripts. For basic information on Ant projects, targets, and tasks, see the Apache Writing a Simple Buildfile document at the following URL: http://ant.apache.org/manual/using.html#projects
The conductor files follow the structure shown below:
Sample conductor file
  1. One <project> element, which provides the project name, default target, and base directory. The <project> attributes are as follows for a conductor file:
    • name: Specify the file name without the extension.
    • default: Keep the value specified in the template (default="")
    • basedir: Keep the value specified in the template (basedir=".")
    Note: In this document, projects are called conductors.
  2. A <property> element to set the version of the DITA Open Toolkit used by the targets in this conductor file. All the targets in the conductor file will use the version of the DITA-OT specified at the top of the file.
  3. An <import> element to import the outgen-init.xml file, which contains the Output Generator global properties and imports the targets.
  4. One or more <target> elements, which contain the tasks to execute for the transformation.
You create transformation scenarios by adding targets to a conductor file. The following code shows a very simple target, the Export target, which copies files to another directory:
<target name="export" depends="default_dependencies">
   <echostart>export</echostart>

   <!-- Copy source files to output directory -->
   <copydir src="${outgen.job.dir}/content" dest="${outgen.job.output.dir}/content"/>

   <echoend>export</echoend>
</target>

Targets include one or more Ant tasks, which are small pieces of code that can be executed. They can be Ant built-in tasks, IXIASOFT CCMS tasks, or your own custom tasks. For example, the export target above uses the <copydir> Ant built-in task.

You can also use properties in your targets. Again, these can be Ant built-in properties, IXIASOFT CCMS properties, or your own properties. Property values are accessed as follows:
${property}
For example, the export target above accesses the outgen.job.dir and outgen.job.output.dir properties.

A target can execute other targets. It can also depend on other targets.

IXIASOFT CCMS conductor files

IXIASOFT CCMS provides targets for the five main transformation scenarios as well as many utility targets to help you create your own transformation scenarios. They are stored in the conductor files located in the %OutputGenDir%/data directory:
  • conductor-ot.xml: This is the main conductor file for the default DITA-OT transformations. This conductor file provides the targets for the main transformation scenarios that are visible to end users and based on the DITA Open Toolkit conductor file. Do not modify this file.
  • conductor-ixia.xml: This conductor file provides the targets for the system transformation scenarios (for example, to create review PDFs). Do not modify this file.
  • conductor-bmanifest.xml: This conductor file provides the targets for the Build Manifest transformation scenarios. Do not modify this file.
  • conductor-client.xml.orig: Use this template to create the conductor file that will contain the targets for your transformation scenarios. Rename the file to your company name (for example, conductor-acme.xml or conductor-client.xml) and create your targets in this file. You can create as many conductor files as you need. Conductor files must be stored directly in the %OutputGenDir%/data directory.