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| DITA Newsletter | Volume 1, Issue 9, April, 2008 |
| Features in this issue | (see the web version at www.ditanewsletter.com) |
- DITA Adoption Growth Rate
- DITA Conferences - Discounts and Free Tickets
- Justsystems Documents as Applications
- Leximation DITA-FMx 1.0 in Public Beta
- Inmedius DITA Storm Developer 2.0
- Syntext Serna WYSIWYG XML Editor 3.6
- Kimber to Keynote Open Publish 2008
- DITA Users - now 545 members in 33 countries
- Upcoming DITA Events
DITA Activity Shows Strong Growth
One indicator of the spectacular growth in DITA adoption over the past few years is the activity on the dita-users@yahoo.com community mailing list:
Click on any link to see the messages from that month.Message History
| 401 | 565 | 527 | |||||||||
| 313 | 251 | 472 | 399 | 320 | 276 | 307 | 411 | 269 | 335 | 319 | 363 |
| 179 | 170 | 316 | 220 | 269 | 303 | 288 | 250 | 247 | 293 | 226 | 202 |
| 65 | 8 | 59 | 76 | 118 | 148 | 73 | 69 | 110 | 104 | 189 | 203 |
| 28 | 20 | 27 | 20 | 83 | 86 | 48 |
DITA Conferences - Discounts and Free Tickets
DITA Users will be holding a lottery for free tickets to major conferences featuring DITA this spring, including:
- DocTrain West 2008 May 6-9 conference in Vancouver, British Columbia
- the new DocTrain Life Sciences conference June 23-26 in Indianapolis, Indiana
These free tickets are worth from $999 to $1299 and are an exclusive benefit for members of DITA Users.
All members need to enter the drawing is to send an email saying you will attend the conference if you win a free ticket. We don't want this valuable prize to go to someone who will not be able to use it. So join DITA Users today and include your request to be in the drawing for one or more of these conferences in the comments section of your order. If you are already a member, send an email request to editor@cmsreview.com.
Don't forget that members of DITA Users get discounts to most major conferences that more than offset their annual membership dues. That includes JoAnn Hackos CMS/DITA 2008 conference this month in Santa Clara, CA. See the events section below for details/.
Justsystems Dynamic Documents as Applications
Justsystems is promoting a new strategy for leveraging DITA in its “document as application” vision and dynamic documents. They will present at Content Management Strategies/DITA North America 2008 to be held April 7–9, 2008, at the Hyatt Regency in Santa Clara, CA.
In “Applications and Documents Collide: The Emergence of Dynamic Documents,” (Monday, April 7, 4pm.) Amber Swope, principal consultant for JustSystems, will discuss the emergence of “dynamic documents” as the new application context that gives users an interactive, real-time, fully contextual view of their business. Through a series of rich real-world application examples, this presentation will provide a new lens for reconsidering what were once very isolated domains of applications and documents. It will also provide a framework for thinking about key business processes sitting at the intersection of content and data, business applications, and documents.
Leximation DITA-FMx 1.0 in Public Beta
FrameMaker users looking to get more out of FrameMaker 7.2 or even the latest FM8 should check out the long list of features that Leximation's DITA-FMx 1.0 adds to your existing tools.
DITA-FMx 1.0 includes a number of additional features over the standard functionality provided in FM8. For a comparison of these features, see the FrameMaker DITA Feature Comparison.
DITA-FMx 1.0 is available to download now, with installation instructions here.
Inmedius DITA Storm Developer 2.0
Inmedius announced a new DITA Storm Suite, with four distinct software solutions, each designed to meet specific organization requirements. If you need a simple, easy to use DITA editor, or require an editor within a full-featured management tool, the Suite offers a spectrum of solutions to fit your needs:
DITA Storm™ Developer is a full featured, embeddable XML editing solution that enables authors to quickly and easily create and edit DITA-compliant content in WYSIWYG mode -- regardless of DITA or XML expertise. As easy to use as a word or text processing application, authors are able to create and edit content in a familiar environment. The Web-based editor is entirely implemented in JavaScript™ and simply embeds into virtually any Web Application or Content Management System, ensuring the entire DITA documentation lifecycle is supported.
DITA Storm™ Desktop is a standalone DITA Editor with single source publishing.
DITA Storm™ Professional is a DITA Editor with a fully customizable library.
DITA Storm™ Enterprise is a DITA Editor with a content management system.
Inmedius offers a color brochure with an introduction and overview for the DITA Storm™ Suite
You can try the DITA Storm web-based DITA Editor by joining DITA Users and getting your own online workspace folder. Join Today!
Syntext Serna WYSIWYG XML Editor 3.6
Release candidate V3.6 includes the following enhancements:
- Enhanced DITA usability dialogs simplifying topic creation and work with references: xref, related link, topicref, and conref.
- A number of DITA-related enhancements, including conref target navigation and PDF publishing of DITA documents with Antenna House XSL Formatter.
- Paginated and Normal document views let you see the content of a document on multiple pages or as a single page.
Eliot Kimber to Keynote Open Publish 2008
Eliot Kimber, senior solutions architect at content solutions and services firm Really Strategies, Inc., will keynote Open Publish 2008 in Baltimore on April 23rd. Eliot will discuss sustainable XML for publishing applications using the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) standard. XML applications for publishers have struggled to realize the full potential inherent in the technology. While larger publishers could make the investment necessary to realize significant return on the use of XML technology, smaller enterprises simply could not. The DITA standard changes this equation and Eliot will illustrate how publishers of all sizes can capitalize on this standard to maximize content re-use and rapid product prototyping.
"The DITA standard should make all publishers really excited," stated Kimber. "The old SGML siren song of re-usability is now finally and truly a reality." Originally created for technical publishers, the DITA standard is now gaining traction in more traditional publishing environments thanks to new tools on the market.
Now one year old and nearly 550 DITA Users Members from 33 countries
The DITA Users
international membership organization has provided basic online DITA
editing and a personal workspace folder for free to tech writers around the world getting started with DITA.
A full $100/year membership will include the choice of the leading book on DITA or a desktop DITA Editor to complement the web-based DITA Storm editor.
The book (a $50 value) is JoAnn Hackos' Introduction to DITA - either the original edition by Kylene Bruski and Jennifer Linton or the new Arbortext Edition.
The desktop editor is the $48 Academic Edition of the <oXygen/> XML Editor, now at version 9 with full DITA support.
Desktop editors communicate with web servers via FTP or WebDAV (distributed authoring and versioning). DITA Users can now WebDAV enable individual members' workspace folders.
Most DITA authoring tools offer WebDAV, some as a premium only available in their Enterprise Editions (for example, Syntext Serna and XMLmind).
DITA Users still offers a $50 discount membership without the book or desktop editor. Benefits include a WebDAV enabled folder and discounts on major DITA conferences.
Anyone with a WebDAV-enabled DITA authoring tool can use it on their DITA Users document sets. These include two docsets from IBM and the docset from Comtech Services in the Introduction to DITA book. They can also create their own projects.
Practically speaking, anyone already invested in an advanced DITA authoring tool may be beyond the need for the "DITA from A to B" learning offered by DITA Users. But the new access method may make online training valuable for small tech pub groups who can now use their familiar tools (like Arbortext Editor or XMetaL Author) on the DITA Users website, as well as use innovative tools like the web-based DITA Storm, while their teams get started with DITA.
In any case, DITA Users member fees underwrite our network of DITA support websites, including this newsletter. So please consider joining today.
Upcoming DITA Events
April 7-9, 2008Content Management Strategies/DITA North America 2008
Are you planning to roll out an enterprise-wide content management system? Reusing content to decrease the costs of Global Product Deployment? Moving your content to the Web and dynamic graphics? Moving your content to DITA? Outputting to multiple media from a Single Source of content? Managing modular, topic-based content for assembly into multiple deliverables? Wondering how you are ever going to find enough time to do everything that needs to be done to restructure and invigorate all that legacy content you’re sinking under?.
Come for cost effective ways to produce and manage content and increase the value of information for customers. Content Management Strategies/DITA North America, in its 10th year, remains the premier conference if you are managing technical and business-oriented content throughout the enterprise.
At CMS/DITA North America 2008, you’ll join a returning community of information developers, product developers, and publishers who value building and managing core content as much as its presentation and delivery. See the conference schedule, especially the DITA Track.
April 23-24, 2008Open Publish 2008
Open Publish 2008 is an event focused on both the management and implementation issues relating to publishing technology based on open standards.
The most effective way to learn about technology is in person! So while there are many avenues for continual skills development on a day to day basis, Open Publish is a once a year immersion in the open technology standards, business and human factors that are driving change in the publishing process. See the conference schedule
May 6-9, 2008DocTrain West 2008
The theme of the 2nd Annual Documentation & Training West Conference is Web 2.0 and Its Impact on Communication. The event takes place May 6-9, 2008.
See the program schedule
June 9-13, 2008Adobe FrameMaker 8: DITA Publishing Boot Camp
Bright Path Solutions will offer a special DITA-oriented version of their FrameMaker training class.
June 22-24, 2008X-Pubs, Component Content Management, DITA, S1000D
How can XML and component based content systems fundamentally change how our content consumers see and experience information?
Presentations on:
- Web 2.0 / multimedia delivery
- Task-based Information Architecture
- Innovative training and eLearning delivery
- Innovations in presentation and collaboration models
- Getting the most out of user-driven content
- Effective workflow design
Who should come?
X-Pubs 2008 is for Team Leaders, Technical Communicators, Product
Managers, Learning Content professionals, and so on who are looking to
improve the way content is reused and communicated inside and outside
their organisation.
About DITA Newsletter
DITA Newsletter is published by DITA News, one of a network of websites in support of DITA. It is 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 with three starter DITA docsets, and a private member
directory to locate other DITA Users.
ditausers.org
DITA Infocenter - the DITA architectural and language specifications,
and the Open Toolkit 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
Please consider joining DITA Users today. Membership is $100USD/year and includes your choice of either: Introduction to DITA by JoAnn Hackos or an Academic License to the <oXygen/> XML Editor, with WebDAV access to your workspace folder on DITA Users.
Your membership fee supports our network of websites, including this newsletter. Discounts on DITA conferences and workshops more than offset your annual membership fee
