Extend Enumerated Lists in XML Schema

The addition of new values to a list is a common and necessary requirement. Schema designers often seek to build into the architecture a means to permit additional values that were unknown at design time. How can schema designers create an enumerated value list that is extensible and easy to implement? Discover several approaches used to achieve this goal.

Kiel, W. Paul. IBM (2008). Articles>Information Design>XML>Databases

The Wisdom of Crowds Meets the Wisdom of Authors: How XML Enables the Semantic Web

Key to the Semantic Web is semantic markup, which lets users annotate their web pages with metadata -- HTML attributes that don't get displayed in the document. Semantic metadata describes what the pages are about, letting authors define things with authority and precision.

Wlodarczyk, Paul. Content Wrangler, The (2008). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>XML

Tailor-Made DITA    

DITA is known for the rigidity of its structure, but technical communicators have opportunities to adapt it to their content through specialization, a term that refers to the customization of DITA structures.

Sliwinski, Larissa. Intercom (2008). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

The Hidden Cost of DITA    

Many people see DITA architecture as a shortcut to avoiding content modeling. O'Keefe warns readers against this mistake.

O'Keefe, Sarah S. Intercom (2008). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

Living With Topic Maps and RDF

This paper is about the relationship between the topic map and RDF standards families. It compares the two technologies and looks at ways to make it easier for users to live in a world where both technologies are used. This is done by looking at how to convert information back and forth between the two technologies, how to convert schema information, and how to do queries across both information representations. Ways to achieve all of these goals are presented.

Garshol, Lars Marius. Ontopia (2004). Articles>Information Design>Sitemaps>XML

Metadata and XML: Improving the Findability of Information   

Information about objects on subjects - metadata describes objects. Purposes: Information management and discovery. Metadata enables content to be retreived, tracked, and assembled automatically.

Bogaards, Peter J. Tekom (2004). Presentations>Information Design>Metadata>XML

Publishing DITA Without the DITA Open Toolkit: A Trend or a Temporary Detour?

I'm starting to wonder whether the adoption rate of DITA and the DITA Open Toolkit is going to diverge. Widespread adoption of DITA leads to a a sort of herd effect with safety in numbers. Not so for the Open Toolkit.

Scriptorium (2008). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

What Do Movable Type and XML Have in Common?    

Compares Gutenberg's invention of the movable type to the creation of XML. But where movable type changed the “economics of a mechanical process,” XML changed the “economics of content authoring, formatting, and customization.”

O'Keefe, Sarah S. Intercom (2008). Articles>Information Design>Publishing>XML

Is It Time for a New Tool?

With the move to XML, DITA, and other new standards, the entry cost for new tools is lower relative to established tools like Word and FrameMaker, since all tools need to invest to implement these new standards. New workflows are emerging in some cases, such as topic-based authoring and shared content, which give new tools a distinct advantage. The new tools can start with the new paradigm, rather than trying to migrate existing content and provide “backward” compatibility.

Answers for All (2008). Articles>Information Design>XML>Workflow

How Do You Manage Your RSS Feeds?

Some feeds are only skim worthy, while others I read word-for-word. Still, 90 feeds is really more than I can realistically keep up with. The question of which feeds to unsubscribe from plagues me. How long does one subscribe to a feed before deciding it's not worthwhile?

Loring, Sheila. Scriptorium (2009). Articles>Information Design>XML>RSS

Well Formed XML

Business integration is at the heart of many of today's industry trends. As businesses consolidate infrastructure, and look at rolling out service-oriented architectures, they are finding they need to link previously isolated applications. It's not easy. You can't link applications without some form of middleware, an extra application layer that lets their various systems communicate. Whether you use web services, or a message-based solution, there's one key feature that's at the heart of modern integration technologies: XML.

Bisson, Simon. Guardian Unlimited, The (2003). Articles>Content Management>Information Design>XML

Mark of Success

It is just seven years since specifications were developed to allow XML data to be exchanged over the internet. Simon Bisson looks at the development of the lingua franca of the connected world.

Bisson, Simon. Guardian Unlimited, The (2005). Articles>Information Design>XML>Standards

Structured Authoring for Everyone

Structured authoring isn't just for technical writers. Just about any department in an organization can benefit from it. This article looks at one way of bringing structured authoring to the masses: by adopting the authoring concepts used in an obscure word processor called Yeah Write.

DMN Communications (2009). Articles>Information Design>Technical Writing>XML

Where I Stand on the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)

DITA provides the ability to chunk information, to deliver selected topics in a variety of compilations and output to various formats. It allows the passing back and forth of this content among authors regardless of tools. My hesitation with DITA has only been that it’s too early to adopt. But I believe the turning point has come.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

Barriers to DITA Adoption

As an independent consultant working mainly with small businesses I find that my clients are reluctant to commit to DITA for a number of reasons. As DITA authoring tools become more user-friendly and more readily available some of these barriers will begin to fade. But in general terms, the more DITA tools that become available, and the easier they become to use, the better for everyone.

Farbey, David. Blockhead Blog, The (2009). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

Essential Tools of an XML Workflow

This webcast is for those publishers who have made the decision to pursue digital channels for their content. What tools are out there? What do all those acronyms mean? How can publishers implement new strategies without disrupting current workflows? Here we explore the alphabet soup of digital publishing, sort out the tools that are most useful, and help publishers find some solid ground.

Dawson, Laura. O'Reilly and Associates (2009). Presentations>Information Design>XML>Video

Going DITA

It’s hard to go to a content management or publishing technology conference these days without there being a presentation on DITA — the Darwinian Information Typing Architecture. For the uninitiated, DITA is an XML architecture for authoring and publishing topic-based content, typically technical documentation. The brainchild of IBM, where it is used internally for many documentation projects, DITA is now an open-source standard under the aegis of OASIS.

Hondros, Constantine. O'Reilly and Associates (2005). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

Frequently Asked Questions about the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)

DITA supports the proper construction of specialized DTDs from any higher-level DTD or schema. The base DTD is ditabase DTD, which contains an archetype topic structure and three additional peer topics that are typed specializations from the basic topic: concept, task, and reftopic. The principles of specialization and inheritance resemble the principle of variation in species proposed by Charles Darwin. So the name reminds us of the key extensibility mechanism inherent in the architecture.

Day, Don, Michael Priestley and Gretchen Hargis. IBM (2005). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

The Most Important Questions About DITA

DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) is an XML-based information architecture. DITA doesn’t reinvent the wheel – rather, it sets standards for known structuring requirements. One very attractive aspect of this architecture is its clear alignment to a structuring method that has proved itself for years in online documentation. The basis of this method is the division of the content into modules called TOPICS. Today, this structuring method is considered the ideal approach for the organisation of comprehensive contents. As with everything new, there are many questions about DITA.

Closs, Sissi. Content Manager (2007). Articles>Information Design>XML>DITA

How Tellabs Uses XML

In the evolving and demanding world of telecommunications, Tellabs supports telecom service providers with the design, development, and deployment of wireline, wireless , and cable solutions worldwide. But with each unique solution deployment requires knowledge transfer from engineers to field service staff to ensure a smooth system upgrade. Learn how Tellabs' New Product Introduction group used DITA to transition to customer-centric writing. *What are the key things the organization as a whole should keep in mind regarding processes?"

Insight24 (2008). Presentations>Information Design>Case Studies>XML

An Approach to Visually Creating and Editing Nested Compound Document

Currently, visual XML structured authoring applications can typically handle a small number of XML vocabularies. In some cases, they can even handle them in limited nested scenarios. One of the purposes of creating XML documents with compound vocabularies is to present related information on a given topic in different manners (tables, charts, etc). The synchronization of views between objects of different vocabularies in real-time editing helps authors realize this potential. In this presentation we will discuss an approach to visually creating, editing and synchronizing, nested compound XML vocabularies within one document. The open nature of the architecture enables developers to create plug-ins for new vocabularies including the ability to define synchronization. Also this architecture provides simple method to define visualization of a new vocabulary by utilizing plug-ins already developed and activated.

Wake, Nobuaki and Junpei Aoki. IDEAlliance (2004). Articles>Document Design>Information Design>XML

Getting Standards to Emerge, or, How to Build a Recipe Book While Everyone's Busy Cooking

The UK Local e-Government Standards Body was established late in 2003, and tasked with compiling an XML based data standards catalogue for use by UK Local Authorities. This is to be achieved by mapping existing standards, identifying gaps to be filled, advising and supporting local Councils, their partners and suppliers on the interpretation and adoption of standards, and establishing processes for developing new standards as required. However, UK Local Authorities have been developing e-services for several years already, so this new effort has to take place in a context where many projects are already under way, using a variety of business models, and with diverse approaches to XML interoperability design. An additional factor is the traditional tension between central and local government, which has led to patchy and inconsistent adoption of the national UK e-Government Interoperability framework. This paper is an account of the methodology developed by CSW Group Ltd and the LeGSB to tackle this situation.

Harvey, Anna and Ann Wrightson. IDEAlliance (2004). Articles>Information Design>XML>Standards

XML-Native Constraint Evaluation

This paper discusses approaches to validating XML documents for compliance to constraints. Our particular focus is on structural and content constraints that go beyond what is readily expressible in XML Schema technologies. We provide examples and solutions drawn from our specific experience building an XML-native constraint validator based on a mathematical language called Structural Notation (SN) . SN is used to express operational constraints as machine-processible Rules against a particular category of hierarchically structured, text-oriented military messages, called Message Text Formats (MTFs) , which have been migrated to a corresponding XML-based representation.

Malloy Mary Ann, Michael Cokus, Roger Costello, Ed Masek and Dan Winkowski. IDEAlliance (2004). Articles>Information Design>XML

Conflict Resolution in XML - Forms For All

Conflict resolution is required wherever we have multiple concurrent changes to a single information set. In practical terms this applies, for example, to concurrent editing environments, to replicated database instances which are being updated independently, to address-book changes on a PDA that must be merged into a master database that has itself been changed. Resolving these conflicts very often requires human intervention. This paper looks at the use of XML forms of various types to reduce the drudgery involved and to take advantage some of the greatest strengths of XML, using pipelining and easily-understood representations to allow a decision-maker to work with minimal drag.

Nichols, Thomas, Nigel Whitaker and Robin La Fontaine. IDEAlliance (2004). Articles>Information Design>XML>Forms