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The Most Important Questions About DITA
 What is specialization?
DITA provides the option of defining new domains and types on the basis of predefined basic types. These adaptations and extensions are known as specialization. Using the inheritance principle, definitions made for the initial types are passed on to the derived new types and can be specifically adapted or extended as required.
How does specialization take place?
DITA prescribes the rules for specialization. A new topic type must be based on an existing type and further restrict its content. Specialization should be done carefully and in several steps.
Are there open source tools for DITA?
The DITA Open Toolkit is a freely available open source package for DITA. It contains a series of XSL transformations and scripts that generate different outputs from DITA-tagged contents. There are predefined transformations for HTML, XHTML, PDF, HTMLHelp, JavaHelp and EclipseHelp.
The toolkit also includes tagged specimen data that can be used for trying out the accompanying transformations. So to get a first impression of the DITA world, it is best – and cheapest – to start with the DITA Open Toolkit.
How to use DITA Open Toolkit
- Download the current version including documentation
- Install DITA Open Toolkit according to the installation instructions
- Use the tool test as suggested
- Run the accompanying demo, either complete (ant all) or for special output formats only. ant -projecthelp provides a list of available demos
In the next step, you can adapt the predefined transformations to your own requirements. You need corresponding programming knowledge for this (XSLT, XSL-FO, ANT, ...). If this is too difficult, there are simpler tools available. Depending on the scope of functions, there are considerable differences in license fees and expenses for configuration and maintenance of the tool.
Are there any examples of the use of DITA?
The DITA documentation is written in DITA. Some companies are already using DITA for their documentation. Comet, for example, has been successfully creating documentation with DITA. Manuals, online help, training documents and glossaries have been implemented directly with DITA without any further specialization. The existing DITA implementations demonstrate that there are many areas of application, and that there will be many more in the future for which DITA is the best solution.
Why does it pay to use DITA?
The obvious benefits resulting from standardization are cost saving and investment security. DITA provides a framework within which technical writers can start with their work directly – without tedious structure-finding processes that cost a lot of money. It is to be hoped that its growing popularity and broad tool support will ensure long-term availability.
Widespread cross-company use of the same basis architecture also encourages the growth of structuring know-how for information collections from which new standards can arise. Standards may be created not only for the contents at the lowest level but also for the resulting collections such as different manual types, online help, etc. The wide use of such standards would in turn make exchangeability and automation possible in quite different dimensions than today. Additionally, technical writers would be saved much time and effort that they could then invest more profitably in the contents.
Where do I find out more about DITA?
All important DITA information can be found under the following Internet addresses:
IBM: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-dita1
OASIS: http://oasis-open.org/specs/index.php#ditav1.0
DITA on Coverpages: http://xml.coverpages.org/dita.html
DITA Open Toolkit: http://dita-ot.sourceforge.net
DITA UserGroup: dita-users@yahoogroups.com
Where can I learn all about DITA?
For information about DITA and its successful implementation, contact Comet
What tools exist for DITA?
To use the DITA architecture effectively, you need suitable tools. Fortunately there is a considerable tool landscape, which is growing fast thanks to standardization and the wide acceptance of DITA.
Together with the standard, there is a matching DITA Open Toolkit available. Furthermore, many manufacturers support the new standard. From authoring tools such as AuthorIT (ASC), Epic (PTC), FrameMaker (Adobe), Serna (Syntext), XMetal (Blast Radius), XMLSpy (Altova) right up to comprehensive documentation systems such as Docato (X-Hive), Worldserver (Idiom), there is a suitable tool for every requirement.
Some manufacturers provide a configuration for DITA in the standard delivery package of the tool, or have given notice of this for future versions. They include AuthorIT, EPIC, FrameMaker, Serna, XMetal Author DITA, and XMLSpy.
Manufacturers of content management systems also offer complete DITA components. These include DITA Exchange from Content Technologies, the DITA starter-kit from Docato, Open Topic from Idiom, ST4 from Schema, and Sibersafe from Silberlogic.
We do not claim that list is complete. New software versions and tools are changing the tool landscape almost daily.
The tools are listed here alphabetically with their Internet address:
AuthorIT from AuthorIT: http://www.authorit.de
DITA Open Toolkit: http://dita-ot.sourceforge.net
Docato DITA-Starterkit from X-Hive: http://www.x-hive.com
Epic from PTC: http://www.arbortext.com
FrameMaker from Adobe: http://www.adobe.de/products/framemaker
Serna from Syntext: http://www.syntext.com
WorldServer from Idiom: http://www.idiominc.com
XMetal Author DITA from BlastRadius: http://www.xmetal.com
XMLSpy from Altova: http://www.altova.com
For support in choosing and configuring tools, contact Comet03/2007, Prof. Sissi Closs
| | Prof. Sissi Closs is one of the leading experts in online documentation and XML in Germany. She is co-partner and CEO of Comet Computer and Comet Communication.
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