• DITA 1.1
• Open Toolkit 1.4
• FrameMaker 8
• Bookmap vs. DITAbook vs. DocBook
• SecondLife DITA Island Voice-enabled
• DITA.XML.org Website Upgraded
• XyEnterprise Contenta DITA
• First DITA Mentors Award to Deborah Pickett
  

DITA 1.1 Approved by OASIS members

This is a very exciting time for Darwin Information Typing Architecture. Nearly two and a half years after establishing itself as the choice of technical publication teams for online documentation delivered as XML, DITA has received a major upgrade in its first point release. DITA 1.1 now significantly improves its print publishing capabilities, with a new Bookmap specialization and extended metadata for the front and back matter of books.

DITA has many characteristics, culled from decades of research in best practices for technical documentation - modularity, structured writing, information typing, minimalism, object-oriented, inheritance, specialization, simplified XML, single-source, topic-based, semantic markup, conditional processing, component publishing, task-orientation, content reuse, multiple output formats, multi-channel delivery, translation-friendly.

DITA is now the fastest way for an organization to get started delivering digital content as reusable content components. Many large organizations have developed their own DTDs and XSLT transforms to deliver XML content to websites on demand, personalized and localized, then assembled using XPath, XQuery, and XInclude techniques. DITA now helps deliver that capability without the time and expense of DTD and XSLT development. And its unique conref (content reference) mechanism not only includes the reused component, it checks it for validation against the schema - unlike XInclude.

DITA 1.1 offers more indexing capabilities with new elements for "see" and "see-also" references. It features new elements for defining structured metadata as well as the ability to add new metadata attributes through specialization. It improves multi-language delivery of your content to traditional print publications. DITA is rapidly becoming a truly international standard.

The ability to quickly translate DITA topics and assemble them into language-specific DITA Maps provides the most important return on investment for many DITA implementations. Many localization service providers are promoting the move to XML-based authoring. XML-based content allows for a focus on the text translation rather than on the problems of formatting the text in multiple desktop publishing products.

Not only is XML-based content advantageous, but topic-based authoring, a hallmark of DITA, allows authors to release topics or topic groups for translation as soon as they are reviewed and approved. Rather than waiting until entire lengthy documents are completed, translators can get a head start by translating individual topics. Even if the topics undergo change, the capabilities of component-based, XML-aware content management systems (CMS) can package the changes and send them to the translators through the integrated capabilities of translation management systems (TMS).

Earlier translations promote accuracy by allowing more time for the translator to check content. And earlier translations allow for simultaneous release of products in multiple languages without long waits for the translated versions to be prepared.

DITA users can look forward to the release of four best practices from the OASIS DITA Translation Subcommittee:

• Indexing in multiple languages
• Leveraging existing translation memories when moving to DITA
• Handling conrefs in translated text
• Managing multi-language documents

For more information, visit http://www.oasis-open.org/news/oasis-news-2007-08-13.php

Open Toolkit 1.4 released

Robert Anderson's development team has delivered the open-source end-to-end publishing reference implementation of all the features in DITA 1.1, including the powerful new Bookmap specialization, supported by a new version of the XSL-FO plugin from Idiom Technologies expected soon.

OT 1.4 comes in two versions - a small package with only core toolkit code, and a full version with several external packages that are useful or critical to running the toolkit, such as Xalan and the XML Catalog resolver.

The development team has improved error reporting so that build failures are more accurately reported at the end of the build, and error handling will improve further in future releases.

It will be a couple of months before the new functionality of DITA 1.1 is available in the major authoring tools, but with the DITA Open Toolkit 1.4 it is available today. We will upgrade the DITA Users server so those learning DITA there will have the latest capabilities.

The 1.4 version of the Open Toolkit User Guide from Anna van Raaphorst and Dick Johnson should be available very soon. When it is, we will post it to the DITA Infocenter and DITA Wiki.

Check Anna's website at www.vrcommunications.com.

FrameMaker 8 now shipping

Adobe too is promoting DITA as a tool for long-form publications. FrameMaker 8 can build a Book from a DITA Map file. They call it a DITABook. It has the outstanding advantage of providing access to the top-quality publishing system that is included with FrameMaker. A DITABook can take advantage of FrameMaker TOC and index generation, automated lists of tables and figures, and then output to the pristine quality PDF that you cannot get from solutions relying on the Open Tookit XSL-FO options.

With this major release of FrameMaker, Adobe has settled a simmering controversy in the tech pubs community about its continuing support for technical documentation. With InDesign replacing PageMaker as its flagship graphical desktop publishing tool, and with the InCopy contributor tool for team-based automated XML publishing, many eyebrows were raised about Adobe's commitment to structured writing.

FrameMaker 8 removes those doubts entirely. FrameMaker 8 is integrated tightly with other Adobe technologies, like Flash and the new 3D viewers in Captivate 3 and Acrobat 8 3D. FrameMaker authors can incorporate rich media content, like engineering drawings in full 3D CAD, and then have them visible in free Adobe Readers. It raises technical documentation to a new level of performance.

FrameMaker 8 code is now being developed in India, and it has a distinct international feel. It is finally fully Unicode compliant, down to the appearance of double-byte characters displayed properly in menus and dialog boxes. This includes spectacular font previews to show you all your font choices as they will appear. Unicode adds terrific value for unstructured Frame users as well as structured, as do many other new features like tracking changes by different authors. And FrameMaker now includes sophisticated conversion tables to help you move unstructured content into structured DITA. That includes bringing in Microsoft Word or OpenOffice documents and generating DITA versions in a few steps, based on consistent headings, paragraph, and bulleted list styles.

Besides native DITA support, there are now 19 structapps files to get you started in many other standard structures, compared to only 3 in FM 7.2.

Note that the Generate Output... option in the new DITA menu will require a free plugin from Adobe later this month. Unlike some tools, Adobe does not distribute the Open Toolkit. You download and install it from OASIS, which might be a problem for some tech writers. But then you just need to point the Generate Output option to your OT installation folder. You can then output to web (XHTML), help (Microsoft chm files), and print (PDF), though I suspect everyone will opt for FrameMaker's built-in publishing engine for print.

DITA 1.1 and OT 1.4 support will come later. I expect it to come first from leading third-party developers Silicon Publishing and Leximation, who developed the App Pack that first brought DITA support to FrameMaker 7.2. Their upcoming release of their DITA FMx add-on will provide many of DITA's latest features to earlier FrameMaker, including versions 7.2 and possibly 7.1.

See www.adobe.com/products/framemaker for more information.

Bookmap vs. DITAbook vs. DocBook

With RSS, XML-RPC, and APIs like SOAP, XML firmly established itself as the preferred technology for exchanging data between Internet and web applications. But the ML in XML reminds us it started as document markup language for books.

When Tim Berners-Lee’s simple HTML exploded in popularity in the early nineties, XML was devised as “SGML for the web.” SGML’s flagship document application, DocBook, was converted to XML in 1999.

Originally, IBM designed DITA primarily for the online documentation that was replacing traditional long printed user manuals, written in DocBook or IBM’s proprietary Bookmaster. For the past couple of years, DocBook has been losing market share to the much simpler DITA, though it remains very strong in the open-source software community.

This can only accelerate with the DITA 1.1 Bookmap specialization of DITA Map. Bookmap has many metadata elements for Front Matter (TOC, Figure and Tables lists, Dedication, Notices, Preface, and Colophon), Content Proper (including new Parts and Chapters), and Back Matter (Index, Glossary, Notices, Appendices).

A major automation feature in DITA 1.1 is the alphabetization of structures like glossaries and indexes into multiple languages. At present, this is a very costly step for localization projects, which offer the single largest return on investment in DITA technology.

According to Norman Walsh, chair of the OASIS DocBook technical committee, specialization - based on the object orientation and inheritance properties of DITA architecture - was the greatest single advantage of DITA over DocBook. It is ironic but perhaps predictable that the major specialization in DITA 1.1 is a direct competitor for DocBook.

To add to the book mix, Adobe FrameMaker, a leading tool for long-form publications, has introduced the DITABook, generation of a Book from an original DITA Map. FrameMaker 8 lets DITA authors access the full power of FrameMaker’s built-in print publishing system, with tables of contents, lists of figures and tables, and indices, plus pristine quality output to PDF that can only be achieved by competitive authoring solutions with expensive add-ons. The DITA Open Toolkit produces relatively low-quality PDFs with inflexible formatting.

SecondLife DITA Island Voice-enabled

DITA Technical Committee member Christian Kravogel says we can now talk to one another using VoIP on his DITA Island in SecondLife. All you need is a good headset with boom microphone for crystal-clear free conversation with DITA users all over the real world.

Chris holds regular meetings Tuesdays on SecondLife. He will be posting specific instructions on how to join. You will need to take four tutorials in the orientation center that train you to walk around - and fly around!

Then you can teleport to DITA Island and the DITA conference center with large screen display showing presentations on DITA.

DITA.XML.org Website Upgraded

The OASIS staff has upgraded DITA.XML.org to Drupal 5.2, providing better spam control and tracking of changes to content.

The Home page now lists the latest ten changes on the site and the five most recent blog posts. The Blogs have a new entrance page, with pictures of bloggers.

The Forums section has a new look and features the five most recent posts to the dita-users@yahoo.com mailing list.

The Wiki is undergoing a complete redesign and will incorporate the old knowledge base. Su-Laine Yeo has drafted a new Table of Contents page for the Wiki.

You should consider joining OASIS to participate in DITA development, especially the work of the specialization subcommittees. You will gain insights into where DITA is going and then help shape that future direction. Individual membership is only $300USD/year.

I have been a participant/observer on JoAnn Hackos' Translation Subcommittee. It helped me with the localization of the DITA News and DITA Users websites using Idiom WorldServer. I am a member of John Hunt's Learning and Training Content Subcommittee. It will help me with the creation of self-paced tutorials and instructor-led workshops on DITA Tutor. And I am a member of the DITA Technical Committee, where the decisions are made to form new subcommittees. Just today the TC created a Help subcommittee, where we can promote the development of Help Authoring Tools (HATs) that are built from DITA files.

See http://www.ditanews.com/resources/dita_help/

Take a look at the new DITA.XML.org.

XyEnterprise Contenta DITA 1.4

As all the major XML CMS strengthen their commitment to DITA standards, XyEnterprise announced their latest release of Contenta, integrating the SDL Translation Management System as well as Idiom Technologies WorldServer, for multilingual, multichannel delivery. DITA specialization is now possible with no customization required.

Contenta 1.4 integrates the leading DITA Authoring tools - Adobe FrameMaker, PTC Arbortext, and Justsystems XMetaL. Contenta also integrates XMetaL Reviewer with XMetaL Author for workflow control.

Note that 1.4 designation is an internal number, Contenta is of course one release behind on the Open Toolkit, with OT 1.3.1 support, since OT 1.4 has only just now appeared. They will no doubt support OT 1.4 very soon.

See www.xyenterprise.com/products for more information.

DITA Mentors Award to Deborah Pickett

The first DITA Mentors Award goes to Deborah Pickett of Moldflow Corporation in Melbourne, Australia for the most valuable, and the most frequent, answers to technical questions on the dita-users@yahoo.com mailing list.

A DITA TC member, Deborah is as active as anyone behind the scenes contributing to the development of the DITA standard and its specializations. But she still makes time to answer questions, however complex or simple, for posters on the dita-users mailing list.

Deborah says she gets as much value out of the exchanges as she puts in, and all OASIS members do gain a great deal of technical intelligence for their companies. But I note that the final disposition of issues is more often the result of her work than not.

Down under in Melbourne, Deborah is crafting her answers while we sleep in North America. They show up first thing in our morning inboxes. She is one of the outstanding reasons the worldwide DITA Community is so vibrant.

The Mentors Award gives Deborah a lifetime membership in DITA Users and her choice of an "eye contact" webcam or a USB headset, designed to support online collaboration using the free voice and screen sharing tools available to DITA Users.

See http://www.ditausers.org/resources/collaboration/

September DITA Events

JoAnn Hackos will hold her 9th Annual Best Practices Conference, in Atlanta Georgia September 17-19, 2007. The focus is on content created with company blogs, wikis, and listservs, in addition to the normal documentation and help centers. Customers are finding more things about companies from Google searches than from authorized web portals. Find out how to get the new collaboratively created content under control.

http://www.infomanagementcenter.com/bestpractices/2007/index.htm

See the DITA News Events Calendar for more events.

About DITA Newsletter

DITA Newsletter is published by DITA News, one of a network of websites in support of DITA. It will be available online at www.ditanewsletter.com.

Each of our websites is optimized for some community-oriented function.

DITA Users - helping members get started with topic-based authoring using a web-based editor (DITA Storm), the Open Toolkit on the server, a personal workspace folder on the web, and a private member directory to locate other DITA Users.
ditausers.org

DITA Infocenter - the DITA architectural and language specifications, and the OT User Guide, in an Eclipse Help format.
ditainfocenter.com

DITA News - a blog aggregator, a mailing list, and this newsletter on DITA.
ditanews.com

DITA Blog - a group blog for DITA information developers (based on WordPress).
ditablog.com

DITA Wiki - over 600 pages of resources in a format that encourages comments and discussions (based on MediaWiki).
ditawiki.org

and a couple of other sites to come soon, including

DITA Tutor - a set of self-paced and instructor-led DITA Tutorials (based on a Moodle LMS)
ditatutor.com

Please consider joining DITA Users today. After our official launch in September, membership will be $100USD/year. Those of you in our beta test program will be offered a special price to keep your membership.

http://www.ditausers.org/membership/how_to_join/