atw: Re: Replacing Word (Long...)
- From: "Anthony Self" <ASelf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 17:12:14 +1000
Hi Dave
Just about every element in DITA (including phrases, terms, quotations, labels,
paragraphs, steps, abstracts, topics, and groups of topics) has a standard set
of metadata attributes to allow characteristics (such as audience, product,
platform, etc), to be nominated if required.
When you publish your source content, you can (if you like) define what parts
you want to exclude based on those attribute values. You can also choose to
"flag" rather than exclude, which if for scenarios when you might want to
highlight, say, "administrator only" content, or "Lite Version" features, or
"NZ Market" content. You can also choose, at the publishing stage, how you want
items flagged.
Using these standard features for conditional publishing is very easy to do. It
is very simple to add attribute values in authoring tools (and those tools
usually highlight such text so you, as an author, can easily see what's
potentially conditional). It is also very simple to set the conditions in
publishing tools, including in the free, open source, DITA Open Toolkit.
While accomplishing most authoring tasks in DITA ends up being simple, the
different approach to conventional linear, style-based authoring can prove
difficult to grasp. Once that get through that hurdle, the next issue is that
the large selection of tools makes it difficult to work out how to get started.
Tony Self
>>> David Ryan 28/04/11 2:59 PM >>>
Hi all,
What's the conditional text aspect of DITA like in real-life applications, or
in your experience? My main gripe with the reliance on Word in an age of CMS is
that the most basic premise of programming is something denied talented tech
writers. I'm hoping to find something more object oriented, where in Rosemary's
example a simple business logo (or mission statement/T&C's/trading terms) can
be change by running a simple query on the tag assigned to the asset. This is
something that a CMS would excel at, and also allow more technical users to
query the database of content either through the UI or, in the case of
mass-scale changes (or stuff-ups) directly on the database tables. Surely in
2011 we should be moving away from complex documents in linear text files, and
moving towards reproducible modular content sets. Very keen to explore DITA
more! Taking a lot of notes from this topic, thanks for the info all.
Regards,
Dave
On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 11:28 AM, Anthony Self <ASelf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Hi everyone
Interesting conversation.
Just to clarify, though, Author-it supports some DITA-like features, but is not
a DITA authoring tool. It uses a proprietary format that only allows "lossless"
interchange with other Author-it repositories. It has a very limited DITA
export function, and it allows you to build structured content models similar
to those of DITA. Apart from that, it has no DITA functionality.
There are many really good DITA authoring tools, but Author-it is not one of
them. That's not to say that Author-it is not a good authoring tool. It is. But
it is not a DITA tool, and users cannot therefore take advantage of many of the
benefits that DITA offers to technical communicators.
Tony Self
>>> Rhonda Bracey 28/04/11 11:00 AM >>>
Answer: Author-it
Rhonda Bracey
rhonda.bracey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.cybertext.com.au
CyberText Newsletter/blog: http://cybertext.wordpress.com
Author-it Certified Consultant
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rosemary O'Donoghue
Sent: Thursday, 28 April 2011 8:40 AM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: Replacing Word (Long...)
Thanks, Ken. What I?m wondering is if someone has made DITA (or another tool
that achieves the same thing) user-friendly, such that you don?t need to be too
IT-literate to use it. In a lot of the places where I?ve worked, some text
(such as a safety warning) is re-used in several documents. When changes are
made to the wording (as invariably happens), it becomes a labour-intensive
nightmare to update the myriad of documents containing that text. Or, for
example, if the company is taken over by another, and logo changes are required
on all documents, can document management systems automate that change? I?m
wondering if there is a product out there that does these sorts of things, or
whether someone needs to create one.
Because so many people are relatively comfortable with MS Word, it seems to me
that the system should at least ?appear? to work like Word, but with added
features.
Rosemary O?Donoghue
TechWriting
Clarity out of Complexity
Mob: 0419 24 3636
rosemary.odonoghue@xxxxxxxxx
www.businessprocesswriting.com
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