XML

Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) Reading List

Here’s a reading list for DITA materials when you’re just getting started. I’ve been fielding some questions via email and IM about DITA lately, and pulled this blog post out of my drafts. I hope it’s helpful.

Getting Started with DITA

A brief overview for a couple of fellow Austin writers who have asked me recently how and where to get started with DITA.

Path, Predicates, and XQuery

In this conclusion to a three-part series on path expressions, you'll learn about complex predicates, dynamic paths, and more. This article is excerpted from chapter four of the book XQuery.

The Steepest Part of the Learning Curve is Right at the Start

Microsoft has a lot of information on their sites about these products. Unfortunately, I can never find it. I usually only know it’s there when I stumble on it months after I really needed to know it. The steepest part of the learning curve is at the start. Likewise with another program I use occasionally—DITA. DITA is an xml schema used for writing documentation.

How XML Enables Information Sharing and Reuse — Interview with Joe Gollner

XML, a way of tagging and structuring your content, can help solve a number of problems, including storing, mining, reusing, and sharing content. XML helps enable the interoperability of information between systems, allowing you to export and import your content from one application to another. XML is behind much of the collaboration and information sharing Web 2.0 technologies, such as RSS (really simple syndication) and blogs. By storing content in XML, technical writers can ensure greater flexibility among technologies for authoring and publishing their content.

XML Fever

Don't let expectations or excitement about XML develop into a virulent strain of XML fever.

Glossary of XBRL Terms

A glossary of technical terms regarding the XBRL standard of of XML.

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

Combining semantic markup with a granular authoring approach like DITA holds a lot of promise for content creators and consumers alike. Content becomes easy to define and even easier to discover. The combination also holds a lot of promise for the future of the Semantic Web itself. In fact, creating the Semantic Web might be as easy as authoring content in DITA.

XBRL: The eXtensible Business Reporting Language

XBRL is a language for the electronic communication of business and financial data. It provides benefits in the preparation, analysis and communication of business information. It offers cost savings, greater efficiency and improved accuracy and reliability to all those involved in supplying or using financial data. XBRL stands for eXtensible Business Reporting Language. It is one of a family of XML languages which is becoming a standard means of communicating information between businesses and on the internet.

DITA Infocenter

A searchable knowledge base of specifications for DITA users.

DITA Maturity Model

You will better understand how DITA can support your organization and how it can scale to meet your enterprise content needs by first understanding the basics of DITA standardization.

DITA Specialization

This area provides access to my DITA specialization tutorial and other DITA specialization-related information and materials.

Does XML Suck? Or: Why XML is Technologically Terrible, but You Have to Use It Anyway

XML purports to be a simple, vendor-neutral textual external representation for hierarchically-structured data. But...

Enabling Information Sharing Integrity

Most companies accept the rapid obsolescence of their documents as an unavoidable cost of doing business. Its not. When dynamic documents replace static documents, users can bring together disparate, distributed data and content and combine it in a single document that is always accurate and up-to-date.

DITA Is Not the Answer

Single sourcing is good, I’m sure most of us can agree on that, but I’ve recently been wondering if perhaps DITA isn’t quite good enough?

DITA: Opportunities To Help Shape The Standard, Promote DITA Adoption, Develop Real-World Solutions

Want to get involved in the formation of one of the most important XML standards impacting content professionals? You can. And, you should. The folks at OASIS—the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards—have made it easy for just about anyone to participate.

Paradigm Shifts are Never Pretty: Advice on Making the Move to XML Authoring

Most people are risk-averse, and profound changes such as the move to structured authoring require new skills and workflows. To ensure a successful transition, XML implementers need to assess their team members, identify allies, and build their implementation strategy around the staff members who embrace change.

Striving for Success in DITA Conversion - A Quick Reference

Planning your conversion is always helpful, and should be part of your overall content strategy review.

Who Says You Can't Use Microsoft Word To Do XML?

Although MS Word can generate XML, it should not be considered any kind of a robust XML authoring tool. Instead, its XML features are best for use with other Microsoft Office applications. However, because XML authoring is gaining in popularity, new XML authoring software tools and utilities are coming to market. In this article, Scott Abel looks at using MS Word for XML and takes a closer look at one alternative XML solution from a Microsoft partner that uses Word's familiar interface.

XML Authoring: Coming to a Desktop Near You

XML for use in technical publications is growing in popularity. As the author explains, technical writers are likely to become more and more involved in XML document production in the future. This article looks at the many benefits of XML authoring and the trend that's moving technical publications toward structured content.

Get on Board the XML Train

The next century will be an XML century, make no mistake about it. All our documents, even checks, credit card slips, personal letters, recipes, technical documents, everything, will benefit from XML technologies. Students are already learning XML in schools, and big businesses are using it to publish their databases on the web. The appearance of the electronic spreadsheet ten years ago changed the way we do business. XML will change the way we write documents.

XML Arrives in Word 2003

The XML train is finally pulling into the station. It brings an ocean change in the way we create, store, and manage information. In October of last year, Microsoft released Office 2003, which brings the promise of XML to the desktop. Previously, Word 2000 saved only the Properties of documents in an XML module in files converted to HTML. In this new edition, you can save or export all Office documents as XML documents. Using XML tags, we can now identify various elements of our documents for manipulation, storage, and retrieval as you would data in a data bank. It also enables us to more easily share information in those documents across other applications (including Web applications), networks, and operating systems.

httplib2: HTTP Persistence and Authentication

In this latest Restful Web column, Joe Gregorio explains HTTP persistent connections, pipelining, and the sad state of HTTP authentication.

Implementing the Atom Publishing Protocol

Joe Gregorio's latest Restful Web column implements the Atom Publishing Protocol as a Python web service using WSGI.

Low-Cost, Flat-File XML for the Masses

When you hear about XML publishing, you mostly hear about databases, workflow tools, and content management systems. These are typically costly systems aimed towards the information management needs of larger enterprises, where the sheer volume of information pumped through these systems provides a fairly rapid return on investment. This fosters the perception that you need one of these complex, expensive, enterprise solutions to use take advantage of the modularity and flexibility of authoring in XML. That is simply not true. You can realize the benefits of publishing from modularized XML, without the expense of an enterprise publishing system, by implementing the authoring environment on top of nothing more than your operating system's file system. Although this environment is not adequate for enterprise publishing needs, it is more than adequate for the needs small writing teams, businesses with a limited number of related products, proof-of-concept demonstrations, and even home users. The AIC documentation group at Cisco Systems has implemented such an authoring environment. We have been able to reuse and re-purpose modular, XML-based information without implementing a database back end. By examining how the AIC team implemented XML in a flat-file environment, you will see: * the decisions you need to make before implementing a flat-file XML system * the trade-offs, drawbacks, and pitfalls of implementing a flat-file environment (as compared to a database publishing environment) * the benefits of XML that are still available, even without the database * a migration path to a more traditional publishing environment

RSS, Search Engine Visibility and Brand Perception

Branding has been called the most powerful idea in business, yet few companies consciously craft and promote their brand. Making a brand visible to an online audience can be an additional challenge. Studies show that searchers regard the companies that are placed on the first page of search engine results as the major players in the field. So how do you get the coveted page-one positioning? New technologies like RSS feeds are one way to accomplish this and make your brand more visible in the process.

Moving from Information Mapping to DITA

Is your company making the move from Information Mapping to DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture)? The author compares and contrasts the two methods and shares insight on how to ease the pain of switching from one to the other.

DITA: From the Perspective of Someone Actually Using It

In this podcast, Marlene Martineau of New Dawn Technologies explains why they adopted DITA, how they adopted it, the benefits they're experiencing, and the reasons why she'll never go back.

Converting to XML: Some Point-Form Pros and Cons

I have recently converted some user documents from MS Word to XML for a medical device company with the intent that they would be looking at authoring their future end-user documentation (printed, embedded, and online) in XML. I want to share with you some of the triumphs and challenges we had met along the way.

A Day at the DITA CIDM Conference

I went to the Content Management Strategies/DITA North America 2008 conference (put on by CIDM), which took place in Santa Clara last week. While I went to support our co-founder's speech on DocBook versus DITA, I also used this opportunity to catch up with software vendors and single-source users. Here's my top #10 take-away list.

DocBook for the Masses

Having new DocBook standards in place may do little to push adoption. An important factor in driving user adoption is the availability of software that implements the standard. It would be interesting to see whether big software companies would jump on the bandwagon...Unless the open-source community comes to the rescue!

Single-Source Documentation: Docbook versus DITA

When it comes to documentation projects, primarily technical, medical, and scientific, using XML is a no-brainer. The heavy thinking comes when deciding which flavor of XML to use: DocBook or DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture). I have been a steadfast supporter of DocBook for over six years. I'd tried my hand at DITA and gave it up as a fad; lots of bells and whistles, but too complicated to integrate. And couldn't DocBook do everything DITA promised anyway?

What They're Saying About CMS and XML

Assuming the tools are now within the range of an average small to medium business and all the other costs associated with implementation are still there, what incentive is there for a business to want to change to CMS or XML?

XML Documentation: The Missing Link (1)

Technical documentation is a prime beneficiary of XML technology, with standards such as DocBook and DITA. However, while XML revolutionized the way technical documentation is written, it did nothing to help documentation teams improve the collaboration process with the SMEs and other invested parties. In some cases, things got worse, with another layer of complexity added between the documentation team and the documentation stakeholders. Where is the missing link?

XML Documentation: The Missing Link (2)

Sharing XML documents during the writing and review process is a missing link in the XML publication chain. While Office or PDF applications help, they also add another extra-layer of complexity and lose the 'XML awareness' of our initial document. That's where LiveTechDocs comes into play.

XML Editors for Technical Documentation

Looking through my Programs folder, I see many programs I use to work with XML documentation. Which one is my favorite? Well, that depends on the size of my project, the size of my budget, and the file I am working on.

DITA Backlash?

I have seen a couple of blog postings lately that underscore the statement that DITA is not for everyone or for every situation.

Musings on Structured, Topic-Oriented Authoring

A blog post that presents a few thoughts on using technologies like DITA to author documentation.

XML Processing in Ajax, Part 1: Four Approaches

Any programming problem can be solved in multiple right ways. This series looks at four approaches for creating an Asynchronous JavaScript + XML (Ajax) weather badge, a small reusable widget that's easily embedded on any Web page. This first article lays the foundation and examines the first approach--walking the DOM tree.

Visual Authoring With XML Data

Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 supports two workflows when authoring with XML: client-side authoring with complete XSLT template pages and server-side with XSLT fragments. The client-side option is available from the Start page.

Build a Customizable RSS Feed Aggregator in PHP

RSS (Rich Site Summary, RDF Site Summary, or Really Simple Syndication) has been around since the mid-1990s. Over the years, several variants of the RSS format have popped up and several claims have been made about its ownership. Despite these differences, RSS never ceased to serve its usefulness in distributing Web content from one Web site to many others. The popularity of RSS gave way to the growth of a new class of Web software called the feed reader, also known as the feed aggregator. Although there are several commercially available feed aggregators, it's easy to develop your own feed aggregator, which you can integrate with your Web applications. You'll appreciate this article's fully functional PHP code snippets, demonstrating the use of PHP-based server-side functions to develop a customizable RSS feed aggregator. In addition, you'll reap instant benefits from using the fully functional RSS feed aggregator code, which you can download from this article.

Convert Atom Documents to JSON

Converting an Atom document to JSON might, at first, appear to be a fairly straightforward task. Atom is, after all, just a bit of XML and XML-to-JSON conversion tools are widely available. However, the Atom format is more than just a set of XML elements and attributes. A number of subtle details can make proper handling of Atom difficult. This article describes those issues and demonstrates a mechanism implemented by the Apache Abdera project to convert Atom documents into JSON and produces a result that is readable, usable, and complete.

Publishing XML Content with XSL

How do you convert your application-neutral, vendor-neutral, unformatted XML content into paginated content (such as PDF) or HTML? O'Keefe introduces one solution: the Extensible Stylesheet Language, a programming language for processing XML.

A DocBook Basics and References

DocBook is an easy-to-understand and widely used DTD. Dozens of organizations use DocBook for millions of pages of documentation, in various print and online formats, worldwide.

Assemble a Cross-Platform Firefox Extension

XUL is a surprisingly easy way to build cross-platform browser extensions or even stand-alone applications. Discover how to build powerful, flexible Mozilla browser extensions that go beyond the capabilities of other tools like embedded scripting languages or CGI--because they're built right into the user's browser.

Yellow Screen of Death

In Mozilla-based applications, the yellow screen of death is the screen displayed when they encounter an XML parsing error. This typically happens when the XML document that the browser is trying to access is not well-formed, for example when it does not nest tags properly.

Build-to-Order Documents with DITA

It is entirely possible to deliver custom, on-demand documentation that is precisely suited to a user's needs. It can be done today, using web-interface strategies and the right document format. This post shows how such a system could be implemented with the DITA format, and shows why it would be an ideal document-delivery system for programmers.

Building a Bridge: DITA, DocBook, and ODF

Some folks here are taking a very strong look at DITA. I'm certainly one of them. But we also have a huge legacy of documents in Solbook format (Sun's subset of DocBook). There are tools for editing such documents, and tools for processing them. and there are many people who are comfortable with those tools. So DITA isn't going to replace the world, just yet. But DITA makes extensive reuse possible. It's a format with a serious future, because "reuse" is a very big deal. It lets you single-source your information content so have one place to make an edit. That sort of thing becomes important when you have multiple revisions of a product, and/or multiple variations. It becomes important when different tools and different products use the same information in different ways. It can drastically improve quality, ensure uniformity of presentation. Finally, structured formats like DITA and DocBook create the kind of consistently-tagged information that allows for useful automation.

Dynamic Content Delivery using DITA

This whitepaper defines a new publishing paradigm, which we will call dynamic content delivery. Dynamic delivery changes the rules, putting the reader in charge of what content is important and how it should be packaged. It transforms publishing to an audience of many to publishing to an audience of one.

Wikis, Docs, and the Reuse Proposition

The Darwin Informaton Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based document format that was designed from the ground up for reuse. It rocks. Content Managment Systms (CMSes) are designed to hold XML data. So in theory, a CMS system that lets you edit like a Wiki would be everything you need. But getting a system like that to work is a pretty tricky proposition.

Streamlining Content Creation and Publishing with XMetaL and DITA

To streamline the product documentation process, many technical publication teams are moving to Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA). Learn best practices for applying this information model, and hands-on techniques for improved content creation and publishing with JustSystems XMetaL.

When is XML the Wrong Answer?

XML-based publishing challenges authors to convert from the familiar desktop-publishing routine to new tools. This article explains what you should consider when deciding whether to implement XML.

XML Development Resources

XML will change the way you develop and integrate your databases.

XQuery Your Office Documents

New office document standards like the OpenDocument Format(ODF) and Office Open XML (OOXML), however, are making office document integration in business processes a reality. A key benefit of ODF and OOXML for developers is the reuse of existing standards.

The Problem of Ingesting and Delivering Complex Objects from Digital Repositories

The recent emergence of online digital archives has brought educators a major step closer to bringing original, reusable digital objects into undergraduate classrooms. Yet having to search multiple archives through mind-numbing search-and-browse routines can make it extremely difficult for educators to use the repositories successfully in their curriculum. What educators need is a suite of tools that allow them to reduce the search for relevance, expand the metadata with user-specific annotation, and tie the digital libraries' content directly to course materials. The keys to creating these resources are to build distributed networks of users and repositories. Cost containment often severely limits the amount of descriptive metadata that can be catalogued. Students and instructors create topical annotated bibliographies or lists of media clips (or segments of media clips) and 'publish' these for class, work group, or more general use. Allowing teachers and students to annotate and segment media as well as build their own galleries greatly enhance the educational value of digital objects by augmenting the minimal descriptive metadata and facilitating the building of complex digital objects tailored to the needs of specific education standards and curricula. The project uses a METS XML schema that provides an encoding format for administrative, descriptive, and structural metadata that is fully compliant with OAIS, and open source applications to facilitate ingestion and delivery (as well as help to control costs).

Cladonia Exchanger XML Editor 3.2

Having spent some time working with Cladonia's Exchanger XML Editor, I can attest to the claim that this is a good, solid, well-featured and extensible XML editor. However, the software is not suitable for authoring documents. It is designed for working with XML data in many forms, but it is not designed for textual content. Let me explain.

DITA for Help

Can DITA be used as a Help authoring technology? Superficially, of course it can! The DITA Open Toolkit includes an HTML Help transformer, an Eclipse Help transformer, and an HTML transformer (which can also generate some sort of Table of Contents). So isn't it obvious then? DITA is perfect for Help authoring. Or is it? Looking a bit deeper, it's not so obvious. Can I include context-hooks in my content? Can I specify a popup link? Can I build a modular Help system? If I can't, then DITA is probably not suitable for Help.

A DITA Wizard

Two of the oft-quoted benefits of DITA, the Darwin Information Typing Architecture, are 'single-sourcing' and 'content re-use'. These benefits do not only apply to the commonly-accepted definition of technical documents, but to many other forms of documents from outside the technical communicator's realm.

Semantic, Structured Authoring

This article looks at the impact of the introduction of semantic markup and structured authoring on the world of technical writers, editors, Help authors and content developers. This article is not specifically about the Semantic Web movement itself, but about the implementation of semantic concepts in the documentation field.

XML Data Binding

XML became an integral part of Microsoft's strategy around the time of Internet Explorer 4. IE4 was an XML-aware browser. As well as displaying HTML documents, it could also display XML documents through an inbuilt XML parser. Another part of IE4 was something known as the XML DSO (Data Source Object). The XML DSO allows you to manipulate primitive XML 'data islands' by binding (or attaching) the XML data to HTML presentation elements. The XML elements within Internet Explorer continue to be improved and added to with every new IE release.

XML is Like...

Maybe XML is more like a carcinogen. We don't notice it's there, but we're still getting exposed to it. In ever-increasing doses. But unlike a carcinogen, XML is not bad for our health; in fact, it has many life-enhancing properties. Well, work-enhancing properties.

XMLmind XML Editor v3.0

XMLmind is a great introductory tool for technical writers entering the world of structured authoring and DocBook. It successfully hides the esoterics of XML markup from the author, so that the focus can be on the words, rather than the code. At no cost (yes, absolutely free) for the Standard edition, and USD220 for a single user licence for the Professional Edition, XMLmind offers excellent value. The software is available for Linux, Windows and Mac. There are two main problems with XMLmind XML Editor: it does not currently support DITA schemas, and it does not incorporate a (Notepad-like) text editor in case you do need to patch up your code.

Are you ready for XOP (XML-Oriented Programming)?

The domain model is a familiar concept to most OOP (Object Oriented Programming) developers and architects, and has been used successfully in a variety of systems and projects. But how does this principle apply to SOA-based solutions?

Fast Incremental Updates of XML Records

XML is often used today as a data export and exchange format. In such cases, you might deal with a feed of XML records; sometimes, if this feed, is too long, there are performance problems importing it into another system. As such, you might want to produce only an incremental feed--that is, one that only includes items that have changed. This article presents a collection of simple techniques that you can combine into a system for more digestible feeds containing only updated records.

Firefox 2.0 and XML

Firefox 2.0 brought several important changes in its XML support. It's currently reaching its peak in user deployment. Learn about updated XML features in Firefox 2.0, including a controversial change to the handling of RSS Web feeds.

Manipulate XML Service Definitions with Java Programming

A Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) typically exports a range of services. For XML service modelling and subsequent consumption of those services by users (people, machines, or other services), Java technology provides powerful mechanisms to handle XML data, which in turn provides a key foundation for using SOA concepts. Dive into the practical aspects of SOA using XML and Java technology, and discover clear examples of why this seemingly complex technology is so popular.

Save Time and Code with XPath 2.0 and XSLT 2.0

Three interesting new features in XPath 2.0 and XSLT 2.0 are the item data type, the to operator, and the concept of sequences. Build a sample application that uses these features to generate a sophisticated HTML view of an XML document, and with the new features in XSLT 2.0, create shorter stylesheets that are easier to maintain. Along the way, spend a bit of time on data typing in XSLT 2.0, and learn to use the new element.

Use PHP to create XForms, Part 1: Creating a PHP XForms library

This two-part article series is designed to get PHP developers up to speed in leveraging Web 2.0 XForms forms for their PHP forms development so that they can finally put their outdated Web 1.0 HTML forms away. This will be accomplished by creating a library of functions that generate XForms elements when called upon. In this article, Part 1 of a two-part series, developers will create the XForms library using PHP, allowing each function to take in parameters and output XForm elements.

Use PHP to create XForms, Part 2: Using the PHP XForms Library to Create Useful XForms

This two-part article seriess is designed to get PHP developers up to speed in leveraging Web 2.0 XForms forms for their PHP forms development so that they can finally put their outdated Web 1.0 HTML forms away. In Part 1, you created the PHP XForms library. In this article, Part 2, you will enhance the library to include some error checking and convenience functions to help make using the library more manageable, and lastly you'll demo the library by creating a proof of concept XForm.

Creating Goal-Oriented, Task-Based Navigation for Information with the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)

By organizing information around the goals that users are trying to accomplish, you can provide task-based information that truly addresses user needs. This article walks through the steps for creating more useful information navigation by implementing information development best practices with examples in the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA).

Demonstration of an XML-Based Content Management System Implementation

The impact of XML and content management on the field of technical communications is no longer just a speck on the horizon. This paper presents techniques and observations from the trenches of a real-world XML-based content management system implementation that is being used to develop and publish print and online documentation at a prominent software company.

Integrating Partner Information Using XML and XSL

BMC Software Inc., a company that writes utility tools for database administrators, wanted to reuse the error messages from partner database companies. Having learned that two of these database companies already used single-source files for their error messages, BMC Software integrated the information about the error messages from the database companies. We accomplished our goal by negotiating with our partner companies for the source files of the error message information. This session discusses how we took those source files and modified them to create simple XML files, then transformed them into HTML using XSL transforms within a product.

Displaying ADO Retrieved Data with XML Islands

An XML data island is a piece of well-formed XML embedded into an HTML file. This article will show you how to retrieve data in an XML format from a database using ADO; you will also learn how to bind this data into an HTML document.

Introduction to XPath

XPath is a language for addressing parts of an XML document, designed to be used by both XSLT and XPointer. In this article we will learn about XPath, XPath expressions and how to use XPath in .NET and Java.

Simple Web Syndication with RSS 2.0

Simply put RSS is an XML application for simple web feed syndication and content subscriptions. Let's say you have content on your site that you want to feed, or make available for other sites. This is known as web syndication. Most commonly this takes the form of sharing news headlines, product releases, or some similar timely content. RSS provides a standardized method for web sites to use when creating these feeds.

UI Design with Java and XML Toolkits

XML has revolutionized application UI design in recent years. With a cunning blend of XML and script languages such as JavaScript, rich, aesthetically pleasing applications can be quickly constructed with ease. We've looked at Widgets and XUL as two examples of this in the past and now, I'm going to take a look at some of the innovative Java UI toolkits that implement XML as an integral mechanism for application II design. Please note, this is the first part of a two-part article.

The Why and How of XML Data Islands

This article explains a useful way to embed data in an HTML document, and store it on the client, using XML. With XML becoming ever more pervasive and the client side implementation gaining a lot of ground, you will probably find yourself using this technique in many projects.

XML Basics

XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language. XML is used to aid the exchange of data. The language makes it possible to define data in a structured way. XML tags are not predefined like HTML. XML lets you create your own unique tags that are meaningful for your data, hence the use of the term 'extensible.'

What Are RSS Feeds?

RSS, also known as rich site summary or real simply syndication, arrived on the scene a number of years ago, but was only recently embraced by webmasters as a means to effectively syndicate content. RSS Feeds provide webmasters and content providers an avenue to provide concise summaries to prospective readers. Thousands of commercial web sites and blogs now publish content summaries in an RSS feed. Each item in the feed typically contains a headline; article summary and link back to the online article.

Bastien PROT: XPS une alternative au format PDF

XPS (XML Paper Specification) est un format de fichier électronique à présentation fixe comme le PDF du concurrent Adobe qui préserve la mise en forme du document et permet le partage des fichiers sans perte dinformation. Le format XPS garantit que, lorsquun fichier est affiché en ligne ou imprimé, il conserve le format souhaité.

Global XML

XML alone is not enough to effectively manage your organization's global content. Explore global XML and its benefits.

The What, Why, How, and Where of DITA

Is DITA right for your organization? This article provides a starting point for your own research on DITA.

XMetaL-DITA

The XMetaL-DITA group was founded to educate XMetaL users in working with the DITA standard.

(e)Xpressive Markup Language?

Conveying the emotional tone of a Web page has, up until now, been impossible with HTML, and the XML standard fails to address this issue. As an interim solution, developers have proposed several new tags to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

ditamap.com

A gathering place for information about DITA.

Introduction to DITA References

DITA is quickly becoming the dominant XML schema for topic-oriented authoring. DITA is a highly practical way of moving to XML authoring in general and granular content reuse in particular. DITA distinguishes itself from predecessor standards by explicitly rejecting the book paradigm in favour of a topic-oriented model.

Subsetting and Customizing DITA

This article explores ideas related to subsetting and customizing the DITA specification without the addition of new elements. Instead, we explore taking default rules and adapting them to meet the needs of specific writing and publishing environments. Introductory information about the DITA specification and the difference between subsetting and specialization is provided.

Tips for Documenting an XML DTD

XML-based development projects often require the development of a Document Type Definition (DTD), which defines the XML code used in an XML document or application. Even if you are customizing an existing DTD like the DocBook DTD, documenting the DTD is a best practice for a number of reasons, including:Providing documentation

Opening Open Formats with XSLT

This month I'm taking a break from covering XSLT 2.0 to describe how the combination of XSLT 1.0 and an application with an open XML format solved a problem for me. I solved this problem so quickly and easily that it got me thinking about how the combination of XSLT 1.0 and the increasing amount of open XML formats are opening up a world of simple, valuable new applications and utilities for us to write.

The OpenOffice.org XML Project

The OpenOffice.org XML project is the home of of XML related features of OpenOffice.org, like its OASIS OpenDocument/ISO/IEC 26300 file format implementation. It further provides some XML base implementations, like XML parser and printer components.

XML Paper Specification (XPS) of a Word 2003 Document

Microsoft breathed new life into legacy office documents by opening an XML window (Office Open XML) to its office products through its royalty-free XPS specification. XPS stands for XML Paper Specification that specifies cross-platform, open standard, document representation that can be used for generating, sharing, printing and archiving of paginated documents. Its virtues in Microsoft's own words are, "With XPS, documents print better, can be shared easier, be archived with confidence, and are more secure."

DITA Maps

DITA maps are documents that collect and organize references to DITA topics to indicate the relationships among the topics. They can also serve as outlines or tables of contents for DITA deliverables and as build manifests for DITA projects.

DITA Open Toolkit

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.

Does Being Technical Matter? XML, Single Source, and Technical Communication

XML is a recent Web design language that will enable technical communicators to produce documentation that can reuse information and present it across multiple types of media for diverse audiences. However, little is understood about how XML will impact technical communication in terms of theory, academic research, and pedagogy. In this article, I argue that XML requires more interdisciplinary approaches toward the teaching and research of technical communication, particularly with respect to the integration of technical and rhetorical knowledge.

Extensible Markup Language: How Might It Alter the Software Documentation Process and the Role of the Technical Communicator?

This article describes the influence that Extensible Markup Language (XML) will have on the software documentation process and subsequently on the curricula of advanced undergraduate and master's programs in technical communication. XML, an evolving set of standards for storing and displaying information, uses nine components that make up the XML development process. Grouped into content, formatting, and language specifications, these components enhance organizations' ability to manage information more efficiently and accurately. As the XML development process is adopted, the software documentation process will evolve from a self-contained procedure into a more flexible, interactive process in which software documenters must work closely with a wide range of specialists. The changes that XML will have on the software documentation process will likewise have implications for programs in technical communication in the need to address new kinds of job descriptions, skill sets, and career paths of future technical communicators. The article recommends adaptations to existing courses, as well as new elective and required courses.

Too Many Pieces

Do you ever think about how much time you spend tackling process issues and tools issues? The tools, as advanced and automated as they are, will not fix all our problems. But we have to work with what we have, and automate as much of the production and maintenance of our content as possible.

XML Syndication Set to Explode - Are You Ready For Big Change?

Since version 1.0 of XML was released by the W3C in early 1998, its use has been growing by leaps and bounds. Content managers and software packages were early adopters and enterprises are increasingly implementing XML-based systems. A number of events are now converging which will make available an unprecedented number of XML documents on the internet. The implications are numerous and will have trendendous impact on many of the fundamental dynamics of the Internet as we know it today.

The W3C Multimodal Architecture, Part 2: The XML Specification Stack

Gerald McCobb continues his introduction to the forthcoming W3C Multimodal Architecture with a survey of the many XML languages that you can use to author multimodal applications. He then shows how several specifications -- SCXML, XHTML, REX, and XML Events -- could work together in a complete multimodal application.

Feedity

Feedity is an RSS generator for web pages without a web syndication format. The goal of Feedity is to dynamically create RSS web feeds from such webpages. Feedity will take virtually any web page, and convert it into a fully formed RSS web feed. The RSS feed is updated in near-real time.

Integrating Partner Information Using XML and XSL

Having learned that two of these database companies already used single-source files for their error messages, BMC Software integrated the information about the error messages from the database companies. We accomplished our goal by negotiating with our partner companies for the source files of the error message information. This session discusses how we took those source files and modified them to create simple XML files, then transformed them into HTML using XSL transforms within a BMC Software product.

Ajax Tradeoffs: The Many Flavors of XML

Ajax stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML and the idea is that with modern Web browsers you can, with acceptable reliability, keep a channel open to the server to pass data back and forth as your Web application is used. This contrasts with standard Web techniques that follow links, causing the entire page to load anew. Many aspects of Ajax-based development require design different decisions than traditional Web pages: How to manage the back button, how to display updated data, how often to send updates, and more. The focus for now will be on just one group of related aspects: what format should the data exchange take?

Introducing XML Internationalization

One key benefit of XML is the fact that it was designed for international use. But do you really understand the concepts of internationalization and localization? This article explains what they are, how they work, and why you want to use them.

Calling a Web Service Using VB6 with SOAP 3.0

This article shows you how to create a client that calls a web service from Visual Basic 6 using SOAP 3.0. If you are still using Microsoft VB 6.0 or C++ and don't plan to move into VB.NET, you will find this method very useful.

Information Models and XML

The defining feature of XML is the ability to specify your own tags. Learn about what to look for in an XML information model and what a technical communicator can contribute to an XML documentation team.

XML Architecture for Customized User Assistance

Content reuse enables technical communicators to create multiple deliverables from a single set of source documents. A key component of reuse is identifying which information belongs in which deliverable. Some customization is feasible with build tags (RoboHelp), conditional text (FrameMaker), topic reuse (FrameMaker and AuthorIT), and similar features.

InformIT.com

Writing, compiling, and maintaining documentation is a necessary evil. While moving to DITA might not improve the quality of your documentation, it can streamline the process of creating and managing those documents.

Structured Authoring and XML: Part One

Implementing structured authoring with XML allows organizations to create better content. The addition of hierarchy and metadata to content improves reuse and content management. These benefits, however, must be weighed against the time and money required to implement a structured authoring approach. The business case is compelling for larger writing organizations; they will be the first to adopt structured authoring. Over time, improvements in available tools will reduce the cost of implementing structured authoring and make it affordable for smaller organizations.

Structured Authoring and XML: Part Two

In a structured authoring environment, authors create documents by assembling elements and text in an order permitted by the structure definition document. You might think of structured authoring as being similar to template-based authoring with a strict template. Authors do not assign formatting; the formatting is automatically assigned based on the structure of the document. Formatting may differ for different output media.

Structured Authoring and XML: Part Three

Not every content-creation group will benefit from structured authoring and XML. Sometimes, the expense of implementation outweighs the benefits realized, especially in smaller groups with less total page count.

Structuring Your Documents for Maximum Reuse

A major topic among information development managers these days is single sourcing--writing information once and using it many times. Structured documents are critical for single sourcing. So, let's explore: what we mean by structuring documents; why structuring is useful; some of the concerns that writers have about structuring documents.

Overcoming Objections to XML-Based Authoring Systems

During a recent development effort, one of our clients was alarmed at the conversion costs of the proposed XML-based content management system compared to the existing MS Word-based process. This was just one instance of an alarming trend of balking at XML-based systems in favor of using public web folders, indexed by some full-text search engine, as part of a local intranet. In the short run, these edit, drop, and index solutions have some appealing features, including low development and conversion costs. But they are short-lived systems that either wither from lack of functionality or rapidly outgrow their design.

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Made Simple

Even if you're wrapping a legacy application, you'll need a service description that other web services applications can use. Of course, there are many data-binding tools available that are, for example, capable of turning a Java class into an XML Schema or a Windows-compatible wizard with a "generate WSDL" button. But even then, you'll have to give those descriptions to others, the tools may have bugs (surprising, I know, but it's been known to happen), or you'll need to hand-tweak the generated files because a particular customer "just wants the namespace or URL changed." At that point, you don't want to have to burn the midnight oil with a copy of the WSDL and Schema specs in hand and the generated WSDL file on your screen.

What is: XPATH

XPath is a way of pulling out particular data from an XML document. It is used by XSL to determine what should be output in your documents. It is essentially a systematic way of defining an address of each piece of data.

Choosing an XML Editor

More and more people are working with texts and documents in XML format. With the increasing popularity of XML, the number of XML editors is also increasing and it can be difficult to choose the editor that best suits a particular user or task. The aim of this Information Paper is to provide an introduction to different features XML editors can have and the extent to which these features are implemented in various editors. It also presents the result of an evaluation exercise where different user groups tried a number of the editors.

What Is RDF?

RDF was originally created in 1999 as a standard on top of XML for encoding metadata--literally, data about data. Metadata is, of course, things like who authored a web page, what date a blog entry was published, etc., information that is in some sense secondary to some other content already on the regular web. Since then, and perhaps especially after the updated RDF spec in 2004, the scope of RDF has really evolved into something greater. The most exciting uses of RDF aren't in encoding information about web resources, but information about and relations between things in the real world: people, places, concepts, etc.

XML Tricks for C#

In this article, gain knowledge about the difference between elements and attributes in XML, as well as differences in character sets. The author shows the benefits and drawbacks of using XML components and why you should carefully consider your character set when developing your software.

Creating XML Trees with the XmlTextWriter and XmlDocument Objects

So you know all about reading and parsing XML files, and even checking if they're well-formed and valid. Now, take a step into more advanced territory with this expose of two objects that let you dynamically create well-formed XML documents in your ASP.NET scripts.

Generating XML Schema Dynamically Using VB.NET 2005: Essentials

This is the first article in a series concentrating on generating XML Schema dynamically using Visual Basic 2005. The series is mainly targeted at those who are familiar with XML, XML Schema and the .NET framework.

Introduction to XML Document Object Model

Learn about XML and the hierarchical structure of the Document Object Model. Nodes, NodeLists, NameNodeMaps, as well as properties such as parentNodes, childNodes, nodeNames, and nodeValues are explored, explained and code is given.

MSXML Tutorial

This article, the first of three parts, explains what MSXML is and how to access an XML document using JavaScript.

MSXML, Concluded

This article, the third of three parts, explains what MSXML is and how to access an XML document using JavaScript.

MSXML, Continued

This article, the second of three parts, explains what MSXML is and how to access an XML document using JavaScript.

DITA--A Standard for TD?

The abbreviation DITA stands for 'Darwin Information Typing Architecture', an information architecture based on XML. DITA is not a mere reinvention of the wheel: rather, it sets the standards for known structuring requirements. The most striking feature of this architecture is the clear orientation towards a technology for structuring, which has already proved its worth in online documentation.

Standards with a Future

About ten years ago, a handful of highly specialised consultants were trying with missionary zeal to establish SGML as the basic format in technical communication; today, the XML-standard is no longer something that can be dispensed with, and is, in fact, even mandatory in many projects. This article takes a look in hindsight at the beginnings of SGML and XML, and the current developments and standards around XML, and also hazards a guess at what the years to come might hold in store.

Lessons From The Trenches: DocZone.com Is Doing It With DITA

Interviews Chris Hill of DocZone.com and explores the lessons his firm learned while implementing the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA).

How to Create an RSS Feed for any HTML Page

How can you create an RSS for a specific HTML page, especially if the page-create software or web host doesn't provide an automated method. This article discusses how to use a screen scraper to quickly and easily create a RSS feed for any HTML page.

XML and Browsers

Now you should know what XML is for and how to write a basic XML document. In this part I will show you how to create a full XML document and load it in a browser, as well and the different ways it can be displayed.

XML Tutorial

XML is a new type of language which has been developed for the web which is different to any other type of scripting or programming language available before. Instead of being concerned with the processing and display of data, XML's primary purpose is to tell the computer what data entered actually means.