Xtags Server for QuarkXPress Beta Downloads

First, you must see important information about beta software if you haven't already.

Then, see the latest Xtags for QuarkXPress beta information, all of which applies fully here (and isn't repeated).

Then, download one of the following, depending on your platform:

• Xtags Server 6/7.3.2 beta 7 for QuarkDDS 3.5/QuarkXPress Server 7 under Mac OS (.zip)

• Xtags Server 6/7.3.2 beta 7 for QuarkDDS 3.5/QuarkXPress Server 7 under Windows (.zip)

Finally, sample files are available from Xtags sample files. (See notes below on how to use these samples.)

We're keeping this version in synchronization with the client Xtags for QuarkXPress releases, down to the bug-fix level (e.g., 7.3.2), and we're trying to keep the beta release levels the same as well, to avoid confusion.

The full (and only) documentation for the server aspects of this version is online at the end of this page, for now.

Change History

Known limitations

• Imported .eps graphics files may not render properly.

• There are encoding interactions that QuarkDDS isn't handling properly (or isn't handling in its interaction with particular browsers, e.g., Safari under Mac OS X). In particular, form data sent to QuarkDDS is assumed to be in the default ISO Latin 1 character set, so any Mac Roman ("high ascii") characters in a form are not handled properly. This shows up on the Mac, for example, if you use curly quotes, chevrons, etc., in the sample forms we provide for testing and demonstration purposes.

  One simple workaround, for now, is to use <e1> as the first line in any form data, which tells Xtags to interpret the data it receives as being in the Windows extended character set (very close to ISO Latin 1).

Xtags Server for QuarkXPress Usage

Prerequisites

Installation

To install Xtags Server, shutdown QuarkDDS if it's running, download and extract the XTension file (named Xtags Server 6.x.y.xnt), drag that file into the Xtensions subfolder of the QuarkDDS folder (wherever that's installed) and restart QuarkDDS. To check that it's installed properly, select QuarkDDS > Server XTensions Manager... and verify that the Xtags Server Xtension has status "Active".

Operation

To invoke Xtags in the server environment, you use only one of the following Xtags URL parameters (or HTML form parameters) along with an otherwise standard DDS request:

• xtagsinputtext provides the actual input stream for Xtags;

• xtagsinputfile references a DDS document-pool relative file (using Web-style paths with / as the separator) to use as the input stream.

Xtags will attempt to find the autoflow text stream on the first page in the document being rendered, and import its input stream into that set of text boxes (one or more--contents are assumed to be empty). If it can't find an autoflow stream, it will fail with an appropriate error message. (This means any Xtags-driven templates must have an autoflow text chain, even if it's just a tiny "toe hold" invisible (no background color, no runaround) text box somewhere on the master page.)

The general intent with both of these control parameters is that Xtags will do its normal document-building with the given input, and then XPress Server will render the results.

For example, the simple URL (where host:port represents your DDS server's host address and port, ignoring any line wrapping):

http://host:port/jpeg/mydoc.qxd?xtagsinputtext=Hello%20World.

For another example, using xtagsinputfile, the URL (ignoring any line wrapping here)

http://host:port/pdf/myfiles/mydoc.qxd?xtagsinputfile=myfiles/builddoc.xtg

Three boolean (value "1" for yes, or "0" for no) parameters control Xtags' operation (these are the same as the UI preferences):

• convertquotes controls whether Xtags converts straight quote characters to their typographically correct cousins (default, if missing, is true);

• reporterrors controls whether Xtags inserts error messages inline or not (default false);

• suppresspictureerrors controls Xtags ignores errors when importing pictures or not (default false), if the presence or absence of any particular picture isn't urgent.

So, for example, the URL (again, ignoring any line wrapping)

http://host:port/mydoc.qxd?xtagsinputfile=input.xtg&convertquotes=0&reporterrors=1&suppresspictureerrors=1

Xtags picture creation tag file paths (and translation tables) are looked up normally, using either absolute or relative paths. Relative paths are evaluated in the following order:

• if the path exactly matches a parameter name (in the current DDS request form) whose mime type indicates that it's an image file, then the given uploaded file is used;

• relative to the server document pool root folder;

• relative to the document itself;

The general idea is that you can, in the server request HTML POST form, supply all text and graphics needed to build the current document, without reference to external files. You can also upload all graphics and text input files to somewhere in the document pool and reference them relatively. Or, you can mix and match these two approaches at will.

Using the Sample Files

With the sample files downloaded, unpack the .zip archive, and copy or move the xtags/ subfolder to the top level of your XPress Server document's folder (e.g., Applications:QuarkDDS:QuarkDDS Documents: in a typical Mac installation). Then (re)start XPress Server.

As a simple but complete end-to-end test that the files are in place and the Xtags Server XTension is working, click this link:

http://localhost:8080/jpeg/xtags/Demo%20template.qxd?xtagsinputfile=xtags/Basic%201.txt

Then, move or copy the sample file .zip archive's forms/ subfolder somewhere you can use it easily. From that folder, open demofile.html in your favorite web browser, and follow the directions embedded in the form. From there, you can select any of the other three demonstration forms, or open them in the web browser directly from the file system.

As another demonstration, you can build documents and retrieve results entirely from the command line, using utilities like "curl". For example, in Terminal under Mac OS X, you can use something like

$ curl "localhost:8080/xtags/Demo%20template.qxd?xtagsinputtext=Hello%20world." > hello.jpg
$ open hello.jpg

to create and view the JPEG file resulting from processing the given Xtags input text with the given template.

Host and System Requirements

Xtags 6.x Server requires QuarkDDS 3.5 or later (3.5.2 recommended); Xtags 7.x Server requires QuarkXPress Server 7.0 or later under Mac OS X or Windows. Xtags Server of any version has no additional system requirements beyond that of its host.

Alerts
•	Xtags for InDesign 3.0.1 beta 2 available
•	Xtags for QuarkXPress 4/6.2.2 beta 2 available
•	Xtags for InDesign 3.0 released
•	Xtags 4/6.2.1 released (for QuarkXPress 6.5)
	(more...)