这个由IBM 2000年开发的技术，被埋没了5年之后，最近似乎又被炒起来了，前不久成为了OASIS标准。
Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA XML)
Contents
Overview
Principal URLs
OASIS DITA Technical Committee
DITA Specification
Other Online Resources for DITA
Key IBM Resources
Cover Pages DITA News Stories
DITA Briefing Materials ("DITA Deep Dive")
Related Technologies
DocBook
Elkera BNML
Topic Maps
Information Mapping(tm)
Architectural Forms
XML Inclusions (XInclude)
News, Articles, Papers, Presentations, Product Overviews
DITA Open Toolkit Minor Release 1.1.1
DITA Open Toolkit Version 1.1 Major Release
DITA Open Toolkit 1.0.2 Minor Release Availability
Members Approve DITA 1.0 as OASIS Standard
SourceForge DITA Open Toolkit Project
Update 2005-06-01
On June 01, 2005 OASIS announced that its members had approved the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) version 1.0 as an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies the highest level of ratification. DITA defines an XML architecture for designing, writing, managing, and publishing many kinds of information in print and on the Web. DITA consists of a set of design principles for creating 'information-typed' modules at a topic level. DITA enables organizations to deliver content as closely as possible to the point-of-use, making it ideal for applications such as integrated help systems, web sites, and how-to instruction pages. DITA's topic-oriented content can be used to exploit new features or delivery channels as they become available." The specification documentation is presented in two parts: DITA Language Specification and DITA Architectural Specification. See the bibliographic references.
Overview
DITA is an architecture for creating topic-oriented, information-typed content that can be reused and single-sourced in a variety of ways. It is also an architecture for creating new information types and describing new information domains based on existing types and domains. This allows groups to create very specific, targeted document type definitions using a process called specialization, while still sharing common output transforms and design rules developed for more general types and domains.
DITA supports a unique transclusion mechanism that is validated under DTD processing rules: an element "can replace itself with the content of a like element elsewhere, either in the current topic or in a separate topic that shares the same content models. DITA's conref 'transclusion' mechanism is similar to the SGML conref mechanism, which uses an empty element as a reference to a complete element elsewhere. However, DITA requires that at least a minimal content model for the referencing element be present, and performs checks during processing to ensure that the replacement element is valid in its new context. This mechanism goes beyond standard XInclude, in that content can be incorporated only when it is equivalent: If there is a mismatch between the reusing and reused element types, the conref is not resolved. It also goes beyond standard entity reuse, in that it allows the reused content to be in a valid XML file with a DTD. The net result is that reused content gets validated at authoring time, rather than at reuse time, catching problems at their source."
Note: Michael Priestley (IBM) has provided several key documents for this DITA reference collection; his assistance in creating this document is gratefully acknowledged.
Update 2005-02-17
The OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) TC approved DITA 1.0 as a Committee Draft and advanced it for public review. DITA is an architecture for creating topic-oriented, information-typed content that can be reused and single-sourced in a variety of ways. It also supports specialization to create new topic types for new information domains. The review draft includes an Architectural Specification, Language Reference, XML Schemas, and DTDs. See details in the news story "OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture TC Approves DITA Version 1.0 as a Committee Draft."
Principal URLs
OASIS DITA Technical Committee
OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture TC web site
DITA TC Charter
DITA TC FAQ Document
DITA TC members
DITA TC document repository
DITA TC mailing list archive
Archive for dita-users list. To subscribe, send a blank email message to dita-users-unsubscribe@lists.oasis-open.org. Unsubscribe using dita-users-unsubscribe@lists.oasis-open.org
Archive for comments sent to 'dita-comment'
TC Call for Participation: OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) Technical Committee
DITA TC Announcement 2004-04-12: "OASIS DITA Technical Committee Forms to Advance XML Standard for Authoring Reusable Content in Documents."
Contact: Don Day (TC Chair)
DITA Specification
DITA Version 1.0 OASIS Standard:
OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) Language Specification v1.0. OASIS Standard, 09-May-2005. 241 pages. Edited by Michael Priestley (IBM) and JoAnn Hackos. Produced by the OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) TC (Chair, Don Day, IBM). Document Identifier: 'dita-v1.0-spec-os-LanguageSpecification.pdf'. [source PDF]
DITA Language Specification v1.0 HTML version
OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) Architectural Specification v1.0. OASIS Standard, 09-May-2005. 51 pages. Edited by Michael Priestley (IBM) and JoAnn Hackos. Produced by the OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) TC (Chair, Don Day, IBM). Document Identifier: 'dita-v1.0-spec-os-ArchitecturalSpecification.pdf'. [source PDF]
DITA Architectural Specification v1.0 HTML version
DITA 1.0 2005-03-15 candidate Committee Draft, revised following public review, balloted for vote in the TC as an approved CD, and for submission to OASIS for a membership standardization vote:
DITA Architectural Specification
DITA Language Specification
File listing for DTDs and Schemas
Source .ZIP distribution [cache]
DITA 1.0 Committee Draft submitted for public review February 15, 2005:
DITA Architectural Specification. Committee Draft 01. PDF.
DITA Architectural Specification. Non-normative Microsoft HTML Help (CHM) format.
DITA Language Specification. Committee Draft 01. PDF.
DITA Language Specification. Non-normative Microsoft HTML Help (CHM) format.
ZIP distribution for DITA 1.0 CD Public Review. Includes normative PDF review versions, XML Schemas, XML DTDs. See the file listing. [source]
DITA 1.0 CD XML schemas
DITA 1.0 CD XML DTDs
DITA Submission package version 01. "... removed proposal-level (non-core) bookmap schemas and added addendum text." See the posting. Cache: ZIP archive and filelist.
DITA Submission package version -00. Superseded by version -01. See the posting.
[February 09, 2005] "Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) Specification 1.0." First Edition, February 2005. "The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) specification defines both: (1) a set of document types for authoring and organizing topic-oriented information; and (2) a set of mechanisms for combining and extending document types using a process called specialization. The specification consists of: [a] The DTDs and schemas that define DITA markup for the base DITA document types, as well as catalog files; [b] The language reference that provides explanations for each element in the base DITA document types; [c] This document, which comes in three parts, including (i) an introduction, which provides background concepts and an overview of the architecture, (ii) the DITA markup specification, which provides an overview of DITA's base document types, (iii) the DITA specialization specification, which provides details of the mechanisms DITA provides for defining and extending DITA document types..." Note: this spec version was posted to the DITA TC document repository on February 07, 2005 along with other materials, for 'Committee Draft' vote. Michael Priestley and Don Day posted the materials, which were approved by the TC for CD level and advancement. See DITA 'spec.zip' draft for voting (revision #5 of spec.zip); DITA DTDs and Schemas for initial CD vote, which contains the /dtd and /schema directories with appropriate files for review for the CD vote and public review; the /dtd directory contains both text and OASIS Catalog files for use with these materials; DITA source for the DITA Language Reference (set of source materials used to produced the PDF of the DITA Language Reference which is up for Committee Draft vote); DITA Language Reference, PDF version (produced from source using the DITA Toolkit). [source PDF]
Other Online Resources for DITA
SourceForge DITA Open Toolkit Project. "The DITA Open Toolkit is an implementation of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee's specification for Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) DTDs and Schemas. The Toolkit transforms DITA content (maps and topics) into deliverable formats." Download source code from this location. See details on the version 1.0.1 release. Version 1.0.2.
DITA Open Toolkit Project Home is a website documenting the goals, development process, and contribution policy for the DITA Open Toolkit project. The site "was sourced as DITA topics, organized using a DITA map, and transformed using the DITA Open Toolkit into HTML."
Yahoo!Groups 'dita-users'. Public mailing/discussion list to support users of DITA. The list owner is Michael Priestley (Toronto Information Development, Dept PRG, IBM Canada; tel: 416-915-8262). Subscribe by sending message to dita-users-subscribe@yahoogroups.com; post to dita-users@yahoogroups.com. "The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based, end-to-end architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information. This architecture consists of a set of design principles for creating information-typed modules at a topic level and for using that content in delivery modes such as online help, books, and Web sites."
"What You Should Know About DITA." ArborText FAQ document.
Key IBM Resources
IBM Resources abstracted below:
DITA Introduction
DITA FAQ document
DITA: Specializing Information Types
DITA: Specializing Domains
Design Patterns for Information Architecture with DITA Map Domains
DITA Forum
DITA downloads. DITA public toolkit serving as a reference implementation. Updated November 24, 2004 or later. Note: see the SourceForge DITA Open Toolkit Project for more recent work on the DITA toolkit.
[March 30, 2004] DITA Language Reference. Learning Your Way Around DITA Markup. DITA Development Team. Copyright (c) International Business Machines 2001, 2004. 217 pages. Extracted from the DITA version 1.3 release package. "The design of the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is based on deriving multiple information types, or info-types , from a common, generic topic. This language reference describes the elements that comprise the topic DTD and its initial, info-typed descendents: concept, reference, and task. The elements that make up the DITA design represent a set of different authoring concerns: (1) The main components of a topic, concept, reference, or task document; (2) The common elements available for creating content within the body of a topic; (3) The elements that make up the two types of tables in DITA; (4) Elements that represent different subject domains; (5) Elements that appear in many contexts; (6) The elements contained in the prolog of a topic; (7) The elements contained in the related-links part of a topic; (8) Elements that are available for further specialization; (9) Commonly referenced descriptions; (10) Elements contained in a DITA map. In addition, this reference also describes elements that are used to manage DITA topics, either for convenience in editing or for production as sets of topics for particular kinds of deliverables." See also the news item related to the DITA version 1.3 release.
[June 24, 2003] DITA Language Reference. Release 1.2. First Edition, May 2003. IBM Authoring Tools. Copyright (c) International Business Machines Corporation 2003. 198 pages. From the DITA version 1.1.2 Toolkit archive. "The design of the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is based on deriving multiple information types, or info-types, from a common, generic topic. This language reference describes the elements that comprise the topic DTD and its initial, info-typed descendents: concept, reference, and task... In addition, this reference also describes elements that are used to manage DITA topics, either for convenience in editing or for production as sets of topics for particular kinds of deliverables..." See the news item for IBM Toolkit download URLs: "IBM Development Team Publishes Updated DITA Toolkit and Language Reference."
"Introduction to the Darwin Information Typing Architecture. Toward Portable Technical Information." By Don R. Day, Michael Priestley, and Dave A. Schell. From IBM developerWorks. October 7, 2003 or later. "The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based, end-to-end architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information. This architecture consists of a set of design principles for creating 'information-typed' modules at a topic level and for using that content in delivery modes such as online help and product support portals on the Web. At the heart of DITA, representing the generic building block of a topic-oriented information architecture, is an XML document type definition (DTD) called 'the topic DTD.' The extensible architecture, however, is the defining part of this design for technical information; the topic DTD, or any schema based on it, is just an instantiation of the design principles of the architecture. This document is a roadmap for the Darwin Information Typing Architecture: what it is and how it applies to technical documentation..." Also in PDF format.
"Specializing Topic Types in DITA. Creating New Topic-Based Document Types." By Michael Priestley (IBM Toronto Software Development Laboratory). From IBM developerWorks. October 7, 2003 or later. Adjunct to a general article on DITA "Introduction to the Darwin Information Typing Architecture.' "The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) provides a way for documentation authors and architects to create collections of typed topics that can be easily assembled into various delivery contexts. Topic specialization is the process by which authors and architects can define topic types, while maintaining compatibility with existing style sheets, transforms, and processes. The new topic types are defined as an extension, or delta, relative to an existing topic type, thereby reducing the work necessary to define and maintain the new type. The point of the XML-based Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is to create modular technical documents that are easy to reuse with varied display and delivery mechanisms, such as helpsets, manuals, hierarchical summaries for small-screen devices, and so on. This article explains how to put the DITA principles into practice with regards to the creation of a DTD and transforms that will support your particular information types, rather than just using the base DITA set of concept, task, and reference. Topic specialization is the process by which authors and architects define new topic types, while maintaining compatibility with existing style sheets, transforms, and processes. The new topic types are defined as an extension, or delta, relative to an existing topic type, thereby reducing the work necessary to define and maintain the new type..." Also in PDF format.
[May 15, 2002] "Specializing Domains in DITA. Feature Provides for Great Flexibility in Extending and Reusing Information Types." By Erik Hennum (Advisory Software Engineer, IBM Corporation). From IBM developerWorks, XML zone. October 7, 2003 or later. ['In current approaches, DTDs are static. As a result, DTD designers try to cover every contingency and, when this effort fails, users have to force their information to fit existing types. The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) changes this situation by giving information architects and developers the power to extend a base DTD to cover their domains. This article shows you how to leverage the extensible DITA DTD to describe new domains of information.'] "The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML architecture for extensible technical information. A domain extends DITA with a set of elements whose names and content models are unique to an organization or field of knowledge. Architects and authors can combine elements from any number of domains, leading to great flexibility and precision in capturing the semantics and structure of their information. In this overview, you'll learn how to define your own domains... In DITA, the topic is the basic unit of processable content. The topic provides the title, metadata, and structure for the content. Some topic types provide very simple content structures. For example, the concept topic has a single concept body for all of the concept content. By contrast, a task topic articulates a structure that distinguishes pieces of the task content, such as the prerequisites, steps, and results. In most cases, these topic structures contain content elements that are not specific to the topic type. For example, both the concept body and the task prerequisites permit common block elements such as p paragraphs and ul unordered lists. Domain specialization lets you define new types of content elements independently of topic type. That is, you can derive new phrase or block elements from the existing phrase and block elements. You can use a specialized content element within any topic structure where its base element is allowed. For instance, because a p paragraph can appear within a concept body or task prerequisite, a specialized paragraph could appear there, too... [Summary:] Through topic specialization and domains, DITA provides the following benefits: (1) Simpler topic design: The document designer can focus on the structure of the topic without having to foresee every variety of content used within the structure. (2) Simpler topic hierarchies: The document designer can add new types of content without having to add new types of topics. (3) Extensible content for existing topics: The document designer can reuse existing types of topics with new types of content. (4) Semantic precision: Content elements with more specific semantics can be derived from existing elements and used freely within documents. (5) Simpler element lists for authors: The document designer can select domains to minimize the element set. Authors can learn the elements that are appropriate for the document instead of learning to disregard unneeded elements. In short, the DITA domain feature provides for great flexibility in extending and reusing information types. The highlight, programming, and UI domains provided with the base DITA release are only the beginning of what can be accomplished..." Also in PDF format.
"Design Patterns for Information Architecture with DITA Map Domains. Defining a Type for Collections of Topics." By Erik Hennum (Advisory Software Engineer, IBM), Don Day (Lead DITA Architect, IBM), John Hunt (User Assistance Architect, IBM), and Dave A. Schell (Chief Strategist and Tools Lead, IBM). "The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) provides maps for assembling topics into deliverables. By specializing the map elements, you can define a formal information architecture for your deliverables. This architecture provides guidance to authors on how to organize topics and lets processes recognize your organizing principles, resulting in a consistent, clear experience for your users. When a Web site or help system lacks definition and structure, readers can get lost in the content. Information architecture is the practice of organizing and interrelating content so the reader remains oriented and gets answers. By defining formal design patterns for information architecture, content providers can apply tested architectures to improve the user's experience. Using DITA map domains, you can express these design patterns in XML so authors can reuse them consistently for many collections of content. This article explains the design technique for creating a DITA map domain. [The reader will learn how to specialize the topicref element to mandate a specific collection of topics. For complete, single-purpose collections such as functional specifications, information plans, and quick reference guides, you might package these specialized topicref elements with a new map type. For design patterns such as how-tos or case studies that can appear within a larger content set — especially when different designers might create different collection types — you might want to package the specialized topicref elements as a map domain. By specializing a DITA map in this way, you can implement a formal information architecture that applies design patterns through the XML definition. In particular, information architects can block out the plan for a content set using these large-scale design patterns as collective objects. By taking this approach, information architects can provide guidance to authors and declare collective semantics for processors with the end result that users receive consistent, complete, and well-organized information..."
FAQs about DITA. Answers About the XML-based Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) for Documentation. Prepared by Don R. Day, Michael Priestley, and Gretchen Hargis (IBM Corporation). Also in PDF format.
DITA downloads. Download the latest DITA DTDs, style sheets, and sample documents. Also references earlier versions of DITA. "dita131.zip" package was announced on October 13, 2004.
DITA Forum. Discussion about the XML-based Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) for technical documentation.
Cover Pages DITA News Stories
"OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture TC Approves DITA Version 1.0" News story 2005-02-17.
"Arbortext Version 5.1 Supports Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)." News story 2004-09-20.
"OASIS Members Form New TC for the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)." News story 2004-03-29.
"IBM Development Team Publishes Updated DITA Toolkit and Language Reference." News story 2003-06-24.
"The Holy Grail of Content Reuse: IBM's DITA XML." News story 2003-04-25.
"IBM's Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)." News story 2001-03-16.
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DITA Briefing Materials ("DITA Deep Dive")
A small collection of tutorial materials prepared for OASIS TC DITA Overview Sessions, planned for May 25, 2004 through June 2004, via teleconference. These tutorial/briefing sessions are open to the public — not just to OASIS DITA TC members. Contact Don Day and consult the TC list archives for schedule updates. Tentative schedule: Mondays June 7, 14, 21, 28 at 11:00 AM EDT.
"DITA Deep Dive" Session #1: Tuesday, May 25, 2004. See "An Introduction to Darwin Information Typing Architecture: DITA." February 2004. IBM Corporate User Technologies. Copyright (c) 2004 IBM Corporation. 32 slides. Note: This document was used as in the 2004-05-25 presentation by Michael Priestley via teleconference; see also DITA Briefing #1 -- additional URLs.
"DITA Deep Dive" Session #2: Tuesday, June 01, 2004, 11:00 AM EDT. Presentation materials for Briefing #2. A ZIP archive; take care to UNzip the archive with the 'create subdirectories' option enabled; this will ensure correct linking across files. See the file listing.
"DITA Deep Dive" Session #3: Monday, June 07, 2004. 11:00 - 12:00 AM (1 hour). Live demo of DITA processing. The presentation is being offered on two streams: WebEx (courtesy Intel) and SameTime (courtesy IBM); both demo options require installation of client software. See the instructions for joining this session. See also the powerpoint presentation for Session #3: "An Introduction to DITA Processing: Exploring Aspects of the Processing Model." Summary: The DITA toolkit is a reference implementation of many of the design behaviors for DITA processing, including specialization awareness, multiple map-based views, multiple outputs, DTDs and Schemas with specialization design patterns. Planned next steps are to work on the bookmap specialization, identify any clarification needed for the model, get agreement on standard organization for use by vendors, move toward Open Source maintenance. [see now the SourceForge DITA Open Toolkit Project]
"DITA Deep Dive" Session #4: Monday, June 14, 2004. 11:00 - 12:00 AM. Please review these slides prior to briefing #4, which will include a live demo. See also in connection with the demo: (1) the [updated 2004-10-15] presentation, "A Demonstration of DITA Specialization Showing Information Type, Domain, and Processing Specializations"; (2) the accompanying samples, suitable for unzipping in the dita13\demo directory; these materials will be useful especially if you cannot see the demo. Instructions are provided for login and accessing the Sametime or WebEx live demos. Playback: DITA Briefing 4 (Specialization) phone recording details. [Earlier 2004-06 version, now superseded by the above 2004-10-15 materials: presentation and samples]
"DITA Deep Dive" Session #5: Monday, June 21, 2004. 11:00 - 12:00 AM. Presentation materials: (1) "Conditional Processing and Reuse: Managing Differences and Commonalities in Topics and Maps"; (2) "Conditional Processing Design." See details for the call-in telephone numbers; no live demo for this presentation. Questions [Don Day]: "Does reuse apply to anything else in DITA besides content? Are "conditional processing" and "profiling" equivalent terms? Is it possible to overuse/abuse conditional processing and conref? Can we limit this architecturally, or is tasteful usage a best practice? Does the use of conref or conditional cues consign my content to the Build paradigm, or can I defer some of that resolution to the browser? Can my customer browse XML that adapts dynamically for particular installed features?" See also "DITA XML: A Reuse by Reference Architecture for Technical Documentation," by Michael Priestley.
"DITA Deep Dive" Session #6: Monday, June 28, 2004. 11:00 - 12:00 AM. Topic: DITA lifecycle issues (end-to-end; case studies and examples). Presenters: John Hunt (overview); Michael Priestley and France Baril (experiences with DITA). Presentation materials: (1) "The Lifecycle of DITA Content: The End-To-End Processing of DITA Content from Information Design to Output Delivery" (Michael Priestley); (2) "CEDROM-SNi's DITA-based Project: From Analysis to Delivery" (France Baril). Details for dial-in. See Questions [Don Day]: "Can DITA support incremental updates for patches or minor releases? How do I ensure interoperability with a contractor who provides a portion of my techpubs support? What minimal tools does he need in order to provide content that I can bring seamlessly into my CMS and production system?"
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Related Technologies
To the extent that a "topic" is the basic DITA architectural unit, the system has some affinities to Topic Maps; to the extent that it features modular content design and optimizes content reuse, it is similar to information mapping. DITA is similar in many ways to DocBook, yet it has "broader scope, inasmuch as DITA applies to more areas than just technical manuals, and more specific scope, inasmuch as DITA applies to topic-oriented information rather than all technical manuals." References are provided below.
Related: DocBook
"DocBook is a document type definition (DTD) in SGML and XML. It is particularly well suited to books and papers about computer hardware and software (though it is by no means limited to these applications). DocBook is an OASIS Standard. It is a work product of the DocBook Technical Committee. OASIS is the official governing body for all matters related to the DocBook DTD. DocBook enables you to author and store document content in a presentation-neutral form that captures the logical structure of the content. Using free tools along with the DocBook XSL and DSSSL Stylesheets, you can transform, format, and publish your content as HTML pages and PDF files, and in many other formats..." [from the SourceForge DocBook Open Repository Project]
The proposed work for the OASIS DITA TC "is different from DocBook in that DITA is topic-oriented, which lends itself to different uses than DocBook. Topic orientation allows the separation of content (specific topics) from context (including links to other topics, context-specific metadata, navigation, and print hierarchies." [CFP]
"DocBook and DITA take fundamentally different approaches. DocBook was originally designed for a single, continuous technical narrative (where the narrative might be of article, book, or multi-volume length). Through transforms, DocBook can chunk this technical narrative into topics to provide support for Web sites and other information sets. Because the goal of the DocBook DTD is to handle all standard requirements for technical documentation, the usage model encourages customization to exclude elements that aren't local requirements. The usage model supports but discourages local extensions because of the potential for unknown new elements to break tool support and interoperability.
By contrast, DITA was designed for discrete technical topics. DITA collects topics into information sets, potentially using filtering criteria. The core DITA information types are not intended to cover all requirements but, instead, provide a base for meeting new requirements through extension. Extension is encouraged, but new elements must be recognizable as specializations of existing elements. Through generalization, DITA provides for tool reuse and interoperability.
Each approach has its strengths. DocBook would be the likely choice for a technical narrative. DITA would be the likely choice for large, complex collections of topics or for applications that require both extensibility and interoperability. Technical communications groups might want to experiment with both packages to determine which approach is better suited for their processes and outputs..." [from the DITA FAQ document]
References:
DocBook.org. Official home page for DocBook: The Definitive Guide, which is the the official documentation for DocBook.
OASIS DocBook TC web site
DocBook Open Repository Project
"DocBook XML DTD" - Main reference page.
Related: Elkera Business Narrative Markup Language (BNML)
Elkera BNML: "Elkera Business Narrative Markup Language (BNML) was developed by Elkera Pty Limited and released as an open source schema in July 2005. This schema is the result of over 10 years experience developing DTDs for specific purposes. [It is intended for the development of XML based content authoring and dynamic enterprise publishing application.] Elkera BNML is designed specifically for the creation of narrative business documents, particularly legal and general business documents. It aims to provide a simple structural markup of documents that will support high quality print and web publications, facilitate content re-use and allow authors to be trained and supported with minimal effort.
Elkera BNML provides four standard document types, document for normal business documents and articles, contract, correspondence and item for discrete, reusable chunks. The BNML schema provides a number of specialized elements that are specifically suited to these document types. The adjunct element provides for appendices and attachments to documents, contracts and correspondence. This element can contain normal narrative content or a complete document, contract or correspondence instance... Elkera BNML also includes the party-signature element and its components to represent provisions in contracts and correspondence where written signatures and seals must be applied..." [from "Comparison of XML Schema For Narrative Documents"]
References:
"Business Narrative Markup Language (BNML) Proposed for eContracts."
Elkera BNML Schema web site
"Comparison of XML Schema For Narrative Documents." By Andrew Squire and Peter Meyer (Elkera). 3-August-2005. "This article compares four schema, DocBook, DITA, XHTML 2.0 and Elkera BNML for their suitability in marking up narrative business documents." [alt URL, cache]
"Introduction to the Elkera BNML Schema." 26-July-2005. Copyright (c) Elkera Pty Limited. [cache]
"Guide to BNML Schema Configuration." Version 1.00. 27 July 2005. Extracted from the ZIP distribution package.
Download the BNML schema. See the file listing [2005-08 snapshot].
Related: Topic Maps
Whereas DITA is related to content authoring and management based upon modularized units, the Topic Maps standard focuses upon the creation of navigational and indexing tools based upon a topical map that lives outside the data. The map/index is an overlay.
"Topic maps enable multiple, concurrent views of sets of information objects. The structural nature of these views is unconstrained; they may reflect an object oriented approach, or they may be relational, hierarchical, ordered, unordered, or any combination of the foregoing. Moreover, an unlimited number of topic maps may be overlaid on a given set of information resources. Topic Maps realize the collocation of information about subjects.
Topic maps can be used:
To qualify the content and/or data contained in information objects as topics to enable navigational tools such as indexes, cross-references, citation systems, or glossaries.
To link topics together in such a way as to enable navigation between them. This capability can be used for virtual document assembly, and for creating thesaurus-like interfaces to corpora, knowledge bases, etc.
To filter an information set to create views adapted to specific users or purposes. For example, such filtering can aid in the management of multilingual documents, management of access modes depending on security criteria, delivery of partial views depending on user profiles and/or knowledge domains, etc.
To structure unstructured information objects, or to facilitate the creation of topic-oriented user interfaces that provide the effect of merging unstructured information bases with structured ones. The overlay mechanism of topic maps can be considered as a kind of external markup mechanism, in the sense that an arbitrary structure is imposed on the information without altering its original form." [from "Topic Maps -- Overview and Basic Concepts"]
References:
Topic Maps -- Overview and Basic Concepts. By Steve Pepper and Motomu Naito (JTC1/SC34), for ISO Project 13250: Topic Maps. 2003-11-03.
"What Are Topic Maps?" By Lars Marius Garshol. From XML.com.
Guide to the Topic Map Standards
TopicMaps.Org web site
"(XML) Topic Maps" - Main reference page.
Related: Information Mapping(tm)
The Information Mapping method is a research-based approach to the analysis, organization, and visual presentation of information. The method is both subject matter and media independent; that is, it can be applied to the subject matter of any industry, and it can be presented on paper, on a computer screen, verbally, or in a multimedia presentation... The method incorporates several unique tools that assist with the analysis, organization, and presentation of information. [It uses the following tools:] (1) Using Information Types helps the communicator analyze the subject matter and categorize it according to the purpose for the audience; (2) Research-Based Principles [helps one] organize information effectively so that it is easy to access, understand, and remember; (3) [Using] Units of Information [helps] create standardized information modules that contain one clear purpose; (4) Presentation Modes [are defined to] format information so that it is easy to use..."
"Information Mapping(tm)." A research note by Namahn (Namahn bvba Consultancy, Brussels). December 2001. ['Information Mapping(tm) is a method to analyse, write and present information. It provides users with ways of scanning, skipping and retrieving information they need quickly and easily. This method has been around for more than 25 years.'] The I-M "approach dates back to 1965 when Robert E Horn, a psychologist at Columbia University, conducted research on how readers deal with large amounts of complex information. His research, roughly based on Learning Theory and Cognitive Psychology, resulted in a standard approach for organizing and communicating information, referred to by the name Information Mapping... Information Mapping(tm) consists of an integrated set of principles and techniques that enable authors to break complex information into its most basic elements and then present those elements optimally for readers, so they can quickly and easily scan and retrieve the information they need. Central point in the methodology is the information block. Structured Writing as the non-trademarked alternative If you have skilled writers in your organisation and some notions of information design, then Structured Writing is highly recommended for two reasons: (1) it is an open, non-trademarked standard, so you don't have to pay for using it; (2) it is more flexible, and not so restricted as Information Mapping(tm). So the method can be tailored to the specific needs of an organisation. Structured Writing has the same origin and founding father as Information Mapping(tm). In fact, Robert Horn coined the term Structured Writing in the early 1980's more or less to by-pass the trademark... [But] the seven imposed information types are debatable, and the Information Mapping templates quickly lead to boredom (their layout is limited and unvarying)."
References:
Information Mapping, Inc. web site
Information Mapping method
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Architectural Forms
"A document architecture, as that term is defined in ISO 8879, can be 'encompassing', governing every aspect of its documents' representation and processing. The document representation requirements for an encompassing architecture are expressed formally — at least insofar as SGML is capable of expressing them — in a document type definition (DTD). A document architecture can also be 'enabling', in which case it does not specify complete document types. Instead, an enabling architecture defines rules, known as 'architectural forms', that application designers can apply in their document type definitions. These rules, and the associated architectural semantics, are described in an 'architecture definition document'. The set of formal SGML specifications of the architectural forms, and related declarations for an enabling architecture, comprises a 'meta-DTD'...
Conceptually, there are two steps to architectural processing. In the first step, generic architectural processing, a generic architecture engine validates a client document against the meta-DTD of its base architectures and, optionally, creates an architectural instance for each base architecture. In the second step, an architecture-specific semantic engine processes both the relevant architectural instances and the client document in order to implement and/or validate architecture-specific semantics...
Architectural forms are rules for creating and processing components of documents, just as document architectures are rules for creating and processing documents. There are four kinds: (1) element form: This is defined by an element type declaration in conjunction with an attribute definition list declaration. The element type declaration can have a content model that constrains the elements conforming to the form. (2) attribute form: This is defined solely by an attribute definition list declaration. Its attribute definitions can be used only with designated element forms. (3) notation form: This is defined by a notation declaration in conjunction with an attribute definition list declaration. (4) data attribute form: This is defined solely by an attribute definition list declaration for a notation. Its attribute definitions can be used only with data entities conforming to the associated notations..." [excerpted from subclause A.3.1 "Enabling architectures" in the HyTime standard, referenced below]
From the section 'Architectural context' in Michael Priestley's "Specializing Information Types" article: "In SGML, architectural forms are a classic way to provide mappings from one document type to another. Specialization is an architectural-forms-like solution to a more constrained problem: providing mappings from a more specific topic type to a more general topic type. Because the specific topic type is developed with the general topic type in mind, specialization can ignore many of the thornier problems that architectural forms address. This constrained domain makes specialization processes relatively easy to implement and maintain. Specialization also provides support for multi-level or hierarchical specializations, which allow more general topic types to serve as the common denominator for different specialized types..."
References:
"Architectural Forms and SGML/XML Architectures" - General reference document
"Architectural Form Definition Requirements (AFDR)," HyTime A.3.
"DITA: Specializing Information Types," by Michael Priestley. See the section on "Architectural context."
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XML Inclusions (XInclude)
W3C released the XInclude specification as a Recommendation in December 2004. Produced by members of the W3C XML Core Working Group, XInclude provides a generic method for merging XML documents into a single composite document using existing XML constructs (elements, attributes, and URI references). Because it merges XML information sets, XInclude can be used with any version of XML, XML Schema, XSLT, and other applications such as SVG and VoiceXML 2.0. The W3C announcement describes XInclude 1.0 as useful "in environments without DTD (Document Type Definition) support, which are more common since the adoption of XML schemas. Unlike the mechanism used in DTDs, i.e., XML external entities, XInclude gives the content author a fallback mechanism in cases where the external document cannot be retrieved, for whatever reason. XInclude allows an application to leverage the syntax in existing XML constructs... and allows an author to choose how to include another XML document in new composite content, either as markup or text. In addition, no XML entity declarations, which were required in the older method when using DTDs, are required for XInclude."
XInclude 1.0 takes advantage of the XML Information Set (Infoset), published as a Second Edition W3C Recommendation in February 2004. Because it merges XML information sets, XInclude "can be used with any version of XML, as well as other existing XML-related specifications, such as the XML-family components XML Schema and XSLT, as well as with XML applications such as the popular Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) and VoiceXML 2.0 specifications. XInclude 1.0 also takes advantage of the XPointer Framework and can be used to include sub-resources, such as fragments of XML documents, that are identified by a separate xpointer attribute."
XInclude "differs from the linking features described in the W3C's XML Linking Language (XLink), which "specifically links with the attribute value show='embed'. Such links provide a media-type independent syntax for indicating that a resource is to be embedded graphically within the display of the document. XLink does not specify a specific processing model, but simply facilitates the detection of links and recognition of associated metadata by a higher level application. XInclude, on the other hand, specifies a media-type specific (XML-to-XML) transformation; it defines a specific processing model for merging information sets. XInclude processing occurs at a low level, often by a generic XInclude processor which makes the resulting information set available to higher level applications."
References:
"XML Inclusions (XInclude) Version 1.0 Published as a W3C Recommendation."
XML Inclusions (XInclude) Version 1.0. W3C Recommendation. 20-December-2004.
"Modular Information: Using XInclude to Support Re-Use for Authoring and Production." By W. Eliot Kimber (Innodata Isogen).
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News, Articles, Papers, Presentations, Product Overviews
[September 26, 2005] "Blast Radius Helps Organizations Leap Barriers to XML Adoption with Launch of XMetaL Author DITA Edition. Market Primed for the World's First DITA-based XML Authoring Solution." - "Blast Radius, the world leader in XML content creation and collaboration solutions, today unveiled XMetaL Author DITA Edition, the first XML application built exclusively for natively authoring and publishing content using the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA). Featuring a rich topic-oriented authoring environment, XMetaL Author DITA Edition combines the power and productivity of XMetaL Author with new DITA-specific capabilities, enabling authors to deliver XML content with greater ease and speed than ever before. 'The DITA industry-standard model for creating topic-based XML content moves away from the book paradigm to encourage effective content reuse and dynamic online delivery capabilities,' said David Antila, Principal, Advisory Services, Collaborative Strategies. 'Products such as XMetaL that support the DITA standard will positively impact collaborative authoring capabilities and enhance the re-use of content, ultimately resulting in increased productivity within an organization.' DITA's flexible, topic-oriented approach maps well to modern information delivery models, particularly those in the high tech industry. For example, Sybase, a globally-focused high tech company, plans to use XMetaL Author DITA Edition to meet its DITA needs. XMetaL Author DITA Edition includes the following DITA-specific capabilities: (1) Visual Map Editing: A powerful visual map editor allows users to quickly organize topics into DITA maps. (2) Natural Structured Authoring: An interface and environment that reduces complex and time-consuming structured authoring chores to a series of simple steps that let users concentrate on writing high quality content. (3) Reusable Components: Built-in support for topic reuse in the DITA Map Editor and more granular content reuse through inline content references (conrefs), dramatically reduces redundancy and writing effort, while improving content consistency and quality. (4) Single-Source Publishing: The DITA Edition tightly integrates with the open source DITA Open Toolkit to let users write content once and output it to multiple publishing formats..."
[September 21, 2005] DITA Open Toolkit 1.1.1. DITA Open Toolkit minor release 1.1.1 became available for download as of September 20, 2005. Release 1.1.1 is a maintenance release that fixes defects and makes patches based on release 1.1. In previous releases, the jar file for the command line invoker was always referenced by the then-current version number, but this meant our having to change the documentation and several internal references for each new release. For patch 1284023, we are changing the name of the jar lib file from dost1.0.jar back to dost.jar because we believe we need to keep the jar file name consistent through various releases. If you have coded a versioned call to dost.jar in any build scripts (versus the preferable method of using Ant build targets for repeatble processing), you might need to change that reference one last time... The DITA Open Toolkit bugs and patches can be found in the SourceForge trackers for Bugs and Patches..." Posted by Don Day to the 'dita-users@yahoogroups.com' list, "DITA Open Toolkit minor release 1.1.1 (bugs and patches) available." See also the release note.
[August 31, 2005] "DITA OT 1.1 Under Both CPL and ASL." "DITA Open toolkit begins to publish the source and binary code under both Common Public License and Apache license 2.0 from DITA OT release 1.1. If you are including the toolkit in a commercial package or integrating the toolkit into a CPL-licensed project, you might prefer the CPL version. If you are integrating the toolkit into an Apache-license project, you might prefer the ASL license..."
[August 18, 2005] DITA Open Toolkit 1.1. The DITA Open Toolkit 1.1 release was announced on August 18, 2005. "Release 1.1 is a major release to add new functionality, satisfy new requirements, make some feature enhancements, and fix bugs identified since release 1.0.2. Release 1.1 provides a reference implementation for the new OASIS DITA 1.0 standard for DITA DTDs and Schemas. Release 1.1 also contains a new Eclipse transformation that produces as output a version of DITA XML that can be dynamically rendered in Eclipse Help System. However, this output cannot be used without a special made Eclipse content provider on the Eclipse Help System side. According to the Release notes, the DITA Open Toolkit 1.1 now: (1) provides transformation to troff; troff output looks like Linux 'man page' output; (2) offers XML catalog support: an XML catalog, which can consist of several catalog entry files, is a logical structure that describes mapping information between public IDs and URLs of DTD files; a catalog entry file is an XML file that includes a group of catalog entries; (3) has Topicref referring to a nested topic: the href attribute of the topicref is extended to quote a nested topic in a DITA file; (4) provides globalization support, with support for over 20 popular languages within the content of DITA files; it also provides a translation function for DITA keywords to over 20 languages; currently this globalization support applies fully to Eclipse Help and XHTML transformations, and partially applies to other transformations; (5) offers new accessibility support — now partially applies to PDF and XHTML transformations; (6) includes Eclipse Content Provider Support; (7) provides index information in output: the output of HTML Help and Java Help transformations contains index information; (8) provides a Mapref function: Mapref refers to a special usage of the topicref element as a reference to another ditamap file; this allows you to manage the overall ditamap file more easily; (9) provides Table of Contents generation for Eclipse Help transformation; (10) has helpset generation for Java Help transformation; (11) supports new parameters in Java commands [e.g., /indexshow, /outext, /copycss, /xsl, /tempdir ]; (12) supports new parameters in Ant scripts [e.g., args.indexshow, args.outext, args.copycss, args.xsl, dita.temp.dir].
[August 09, 2005] "An XML-Based Information Architecture for Learning Content, Part 2: A DITA Content Pilot. Use DITA XML to Develop Reusable Learning Content." By John P. Hunt (DITA Learning Architect, IBM) and Robert Bernard (DB2 Training Developer, IBM). From IBM developerWorks (August 09, 2005). ['With DITA XML extensions, develop reusable learning content in this an example based on pilot content from an IBM DB2 training course.'] "The first article in this series defined a set of DITA topic types and other extensions that provide a framework for developing an XML content model for authoring and delivering learning content. We identified key phases in the DITA end-to-end process model for developing and delivering learning content, including: (1) Identify and model learning objectives and goals (2) Organize objectives into lessons and modules (3) Identify existing topics and develop new topic-based content that supports the objectives (4) Develop topic content for labs, exercises, and assessments, as appropriate (5) Write overviews and summaries for each objective and the overall course (6) Structure the topics for delivery in a particular course with a map (7) Use XSLT to process the map and topics for the particular deliverable In this article, we describe how we applied this DITA process model for learning to a case study course using content from an existing course on the IBM DB2 Query Monitor. This course was originally developed for delivery as instructor-led training (ILT), with content provided in the form of instructor slides, an instructor guide (printed PDF), and a student guide (printed PDF)... This pilot project provides an initial reference point for using DITA XML to support best practices in developing and delivering learning content. We've only just begun: We need to do much deeper work against richer and more diverse learning content to further validate, refine, and extend the design and process framework outlined here. Specifically, we plan to extend our explorations along the following lines: bring more focus on specific reuse and repurposing of educational content; convert more robust courses into DITA; develop targeted output transforms that are specific to learning deliverables needed for instructor-led training; extend DITA map specializations to include course-level and unit-level mapping; develop map processing to support delivery to a SCORM-compliant manifest and content package; continue refining the learning topic types, in response to specific content requirements that arise in actual course content." See also: DITA Open Toolkit (SourceForge).
[August 05, 2005] "An XML-Based Information Architecture for Learning Content, Part 1: A DITA Specialization Design. Use DITA XML to Develop Reusable Learning Content." By John P. Hunt (DITA Learning Architect, IBM) and Robert Bernard (DB2 Training Developer, IBM). From IBM developerWorks (August 05, 2005). ['Use topic-based DITA XML to provide the basis for developing an information architecture for single-sourced XML learning content.'] Can topic-based DITA XML provide the basis for developing an information architecture for single-sourced XML learning content? The ability to have a standard definition for educational information is appealing because it allows you to: Minimize duplicate effort - reuse; Use material from alternate sources - repurpose; Supply course topics to alternate deliverables - repurpose; Build to company-wide standardized methods; Create custom courses quickly. This article builds directly on the rich background about reusable content and e-learning delivery in the learning and training fields. Here in Part 1, the authors posit a set of extensions to DITA XML that provide the starting point for a unifying content model for learning. Several industry trends in technical communication and technical training have converged over the past several years, all with the goal of fostering and capitalizing on the value of reusable content. These include: Reusable learning objects (RLOs); the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) standard for Web-based e-learning; the Darwin Information Typing Architecture standard for XML-based content. This article offers some background on reusable learning objects and e-learning, and then proposes a high-level design for a unifying content model for learning based on the DITA XML content standard. Topic-based DITA XML provides essential ingredients for developing reusable learning content. The DITA specialization architecture enables you to develop new DITA topic types that support learning content. With DITA maps, you can define a design pattern that ties these topics together into an overall information architecture for learning content. Part 2 of this series will show how the IBM DB2 team applied this design and the overall DITA process model for designing, developing, and delivering content to an actual DB2 training course. Part 2 will also include a download with the DITA specialization schemas and sample content files, for use with the DITA Open Toolkit..."
[July 26, 2005] "Analysis: DITA Cuts the Cost of Content Reuse." By Doug Henschen. From Intelligent Enterprise, Content Management (July 26, 2005). "Switching to XML-based management for multichannel content reuse brings long-term savings, but in the short term it can be an expensive and time-consuming journey akin to building a house from scratch using a pile of lumber. Getting there using the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is more like building with prefabricated modular components that can be quickly assembled into a suitable structure. This analogy, offered up by Frances Gambino, director of documentation services at Information Builders Inc., is typical of the user feedback building around DITA, an open XML-based architecture for planning, authoring, managing and publishing technical content in print and on the Web. Developed by IBM and recently approved as a standard by OASIS, DITA promises huge savings for any organization that publishes user manuals, maintenance documentation, catalogs and other content for Web and print publication. Information Builders adopted DITA as its standard for documentation more than a year ago. 'Many of our software products share components, so we might have the same chapter in two or three different software manuals,' says Gambino. 'DITA takes a topic-based approach, so we can share chapters, subsections and paragraphs in two or more manuals.' In contrast to older print-oriented standards such as DocBook, DITA was developed specifically to promote multiformat reuse, including Web-based formats such as help menus and knowledgebases typically organized by topic. DITA is also hierarchical and includes built-in support for industry- and company-specific customization (or 'specialization,' in DITA parlance), so it's easy to bring new content into existing DITA-based document type definitions (DTDs). 'Companies often spend tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars developing custom DTDs, yet they often turn out to be inflexible and costly to maintain,' says consultant JoAnn Hackos of Comtech Services. 'DITA promises enormous cost savings because it provides a ready-made set of DTDs that offers all the advantages of a standard.' In a merger scenario, for example, Hackos says two companies embracing DITA would have a much easier time merging information by exploiting the standard's hierarchies and specialization features..."
[July 23, 2005] "A Unified Type Hierarchy for Discourse: A Potential Direction for DITA 2." By Erik Hennum (IBM) Presented at Extreme Markup Languages 2005. August 2005. Type hierarchies have had great success in the Object-Oriented Design, ontology, and other areas. For instance, an API for UI programming often defines a general UI component that serves as the base type for specialized UI components such as a button, list, or text box. Some benefits of defining a type hierarchy: shared design, shared processing, easier understanding, interoperability, composability(an instance of a specialized type anywhere that allows an instance of the general type; this approach, called polymorphism in object-oriented systems, allows for design and processing flexibility without compromising the validity of designs). A formal type hierarchy can realize similar benefits for discourse. By discourse, this paper means a discussion with sequential flow whose content is structured and classified by constructs such as paragraphs, tips, phrases, product names, and so on. These structuring and classifying constructs can be considered types defined in a markup languages. Thus, a formal type hierarchy establishes relationships between more general and more specialized constructs. For instance, a product name might be considered a special kindof phrase. Overall, a set of information conforming to a formal type hierarchy would be composed of discourse objects (each of which retains its type integrity) as opposed to an indefinite mix of namespaced content. This paper proposes a strategy for building on the existing DITA type mechanisms to provide a more flexible type hierarchy. In particular, the paper argues the benefits of a unified type hierarchy, the importance of containment changes for specialization of discourse, and the need to decouple the declaration of type relationships from the schema declarations that validate the XML expression of those types. A number of initiatives and investigations are relevant to discourse typing: (1) Ontological models, which have a standard representation in the Web Ontology Language; (2) Architectural Forms; (3) DocBook and TEI solutions using RelaxNG; (4) The Datatype Library Language (DTLL) initiative championed by Jeni Tennison; (5) The Markup Semantics initiative of the BECHAMEL project; (6) The Secondary Structuring initiative; (7) The Schematron notion of abstract patterns; (8) Object Oriented Design's well-defined strategy for type specialization. We plan to submit this strategy for the consideration of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee. Discussion and refinement of the strategy by interested parties there and generally is welcome and important..." Also in PDF [cache].
[June 07, 2005] Announcement: DITA Open Toolkit 1.0.2 Minor Release Availability. Announcing a minor release 1.0.2 of the DITA Open Toolkit is now available from its project page. "The enhancements mainly make the package easier to integrate into existing production systems, but the command line interface in particular is in response to user feedback from recent conferences and workshops, requesting simpler access to processing features for non-programmer users and evaluators... The release contains the following fixed bugs and Requests For Enhancement (RFEs): (1) SF Bug 1181950: format attribute should be set to 'dita' for dita topic; (2) SF Patch 1176909: Add template for getting image URI; (3) SF RFE 1183487: Document the usage of footer property; (4) SF RFE 1198847: command line interface support; (5) SF RFE 1198850: architecture document update; (6) SF RFE 1200410: need explanation for dita.list; (7) SF RFE 1201175: XML catalog support..."
[June 01, 2005] "Members Approve DITA as OASIS Standard. Arbortext, BMC Software, IBM, Idiom, Innodata Isogen, Intel, Nokia, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, the U.S. Department of Defense, and Others Define XML Architecture for Publishing." - "OASIS, the international e-business standards consortium, today announced that its members have approved the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) version 1.0 as an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies the highest level of ratification. DITA defines an XML architecture for designing, writing, managing, and publishing many kinds of information in print and on the Web. DITA consists of a set of design principles for creating 'information-typed' modules at a topic level. DITA enables organizations to deliver content as closely as possible to the point-of-use, making it ideal for applications such as integrated help systems, web sites, and how-to instruction pages. DITA's topic-oriented content can be used to exploit new features or delivery channels as they become available. 'DITA has grown well beyond its initial focus on technical documentation and user assistance,' noted Don Day of IBM, chair of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee. 'DITA's extensible architecture makes it ideal for content definition across the business — from marketing communications to development specifications and artifacts, from company policies and procedures to news articles — the potential is tremendous. What's more, industry sectors, such as pharmaceutical, semiconductor, and telecommunications, have the power to standardize on DITA subject-matter vocabularies within their communities.' 'DITA is a testament to the benefits of bringing an entire community together to develop an open standard,' said Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS. 'DITA was advanced by users of documentation, such as BMC, IBM, Intel, Nokia, Oracle, Sun, and the U.S. Department of Defense, working with product vendors like Arbortext and Idiom, with input from consulting firms such as Innodata Isogen and others. A variety of perspectives on software development, application implementation, open source tools, training, and localization were incorporated into the open process. The result is that the DITA OASIS Standard delivers an end-to-end solution that meets the needs of the market'..." See the bibliographic references.
[May 31, 2005] "Structured Authoring in Wikis: The Convergence of Structure and Chaos." By Paul Prescod (Blast Radius XMetaL). Presentation at XTech 2005 [XML Europe Conference], May 24-27, 2005. We view wikis as key examples of a document-contextual collaboration paradigm that we call DocumentSpaces. Nevertheless, wikis are by no means perfect. They tend to have a very basic structure of HTML files joined by simple one-way links. More advanced structured markup concepts are often missing. Examples include documents composed of other documents, bidirectional links, typed links and annotation overlays. We propose that by adding XML concepts to wikis they can become substantially more powerful and ubiquitous. This paper describes how to add XML structure to wikis in order to more fully realize the DocumentSpaces vision... Every wiki document is inherently an addressable, unified collaborative space: a DocumentSpace. The wiki itself is a collection of these spaces. Therefore a wiki is a natural repository for the rich collaborative spaces that Blast Radius is incorporating into its products like XMetaL Author and XMetaL Reviewer. We are currently working with a few visionary customers and partners to integrate our collaboration technologies into their wiki platforms of choice. We believe that by combining rich XML (DITA) structure, collaborative DocumentSpaces and wikis, we can help organizations break down the barriers that prevent them from achieving cross-departmental collaboration. We hope that this will allow these organizations to deliver more interesting products to market more quickly and efficiently..."
[May 31, 2005] "DITA: Getting Started." By Christian Kravogel (SeicoDyne GmbH) and Boris Horner (Horner Project). Presentation at XTech 2005 [XML Europe Conference], May 24-27, 2005. "This presentation addresses a low-effort-required solution for users looking to take a step into XML for their technical documentation. The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) and its associated public toolkit provide you with the DTDs, stylesheets and other tools you require to make your steps into XML. But DITA is much more. The DITA specialization process gives you the ability to easily adapt DITA to your company requirements to provide value for various document types. DITA is integrated into and actively supported by many state-of-the-art tools commonly known in the XML world like EPIC, XMLSpy, Serna, WorldServer OpenTopic, Content Mapper and many others to come. If you are involved in a project to introduce XML, a new CMS, or in general a new authoring environment, you will face many time and budget consuming issues and challenges — if there is anything cool and you get it for free, then take it. With DITA you will be part of a community, there are already many people around using DITA based solutions..."
[April 20, 2005] "Using DITA for Information Architecture." By Michael Priestley (IBM User Technologies). Presented at WritersUA 2005 Conference [Thirteenth Annual WritersUA Conference, March 20-23, 2005, Tropicana Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA]. 39 slides. See the abstract. "DITA is an architecture for the design, development, and publication of technical information. The role of the information architect in this process is explicitly supported by DITA through the use of DITA map documents, which store the information architecture for an information set, and allow the information architect to define task flows, support relationships, and conceptual hierarchies across complex information sets. The information architecture in DITA is not a throw-away design document: it is a living part of the information set. It not only defines requirements on the content but also manages navigation, related links, and metadata, and is used to select and control how topics are built into output deliverables such as helpsets, Web sites, and PDF documents. Demonstrations will include previews of map functionality not yet available in the DITA public toolkit. Covers: About DITA maps; About DITA map structures and attributes; How to create a taskflow; How to identify supporting concepts and reference information; How to develop a conceptual hierarchy; How to integrate information types into a navigation hierarchy; How to scale your information architecture from components to products and solutions." Includes an example on Buying Items (Finding items, Evaluating items, Placing bids, Paying for items); see the DITA "Buying Sample" ZIP file; unzip this package into the SourceForge DITA-OT toolkit directory, then build htmlhelp by calling 'ant -f ant/ww_htmlhelp.xml'.
[April 20, 2005] "Specializing with DITA." By Michael Priestley and Erik Hennum. Presented at the 7th Annual Content Management Strategies Conference, which featured a new DITA track (Loews Annapolis Hotel, Annapolis, Maryland, April 11-13, 2005). 22 slides. "This presentation introduces specialization, provides a brief demonstration of how DITA specialization works on a technical level, and then describes how specialization can fit into a larger process within an organization to accommodate ongoing and distributed development of specializations across varied subject areas." Covers: Introduction to specialization, demonstration of specialization, and community-developed specializations. Benefits of specialization: (1) No need to reinvent the base vocabulary; (2) No impact from other designs that customize for different purposes; (3) Interoperability at the base type; (4) Reusable type hierarchies: share understanding of information across groups, saving time and presenting a consistent picture to customers; (5) Output tailored to customers and information; (6) Consistency; (7) Learning support for new writers; (8) Explicit support of different product architectural requirements.
[April 20, 2005] "Scenario-Based Information Development with DITA." By Michael Priestley (IBM). Presented at the 7th Annual Content Management Strategies Conference, which featured a new DITA track (Loews Annapolis Hotel, Annapolis, Maryland, April 11-13, 2005). 26 slides. "This presentation describes a scenario-based approach to developing information, and the ways in which DITA can be used to support that approach using DITA maps and DITA topic types. This discussion highlights what we did right, and improvements that we need to consider in the future for both product updates and new product development." Stages in scenario-based information development: Develop understanding; Develop architecture; Develop content; Rinse and repeat. User roles and goals drive scenarios. Scenarios drive task flows and supporting material. Task flows drive content. Testable at each step: tutorials, prototypes, Betas. Result: user focused. See also the DITA "Buying Sample" ZIP file; unzip this package into the SourceForge DITA-OT toolkit directory, then build htmlhelp by calling 'ant -f ant/ww_htmlhelp.xml'.
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Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA XML) 完全介绍
