DITA 1.3: What's New And

Different

A quick guide to the new and cool stuff coming in DITA 1.3

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Eliot KimberContrext, LLC

DCL Webinar 2 Nov 2014

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DITA 1.3: What's New And

Different

A quick guide to the new and cool stuff coming in DITA 1.3

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Eliot KimberContrext, LLC

DCL Webinar 2 Nov 2014

About the Author

• Independent consultant focusing on DITA analysis, design, and implementation

• Doing SGML and XML for cough 30 years cough• Founding member of the DITA Technical Committee• Founding member of the XML Working Group• Co-editor of HyTime standard (ISO/IEC 10744)• Primary developer and founder of the DITA for

Publishers project• Author of DITA for Practitioners, Vol 1 (XML Press)• More DITA 1.3 accepted proposals than any other TC

member

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DITA VERSION 1.3 ACTIVITY

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DITA 1.3 Status

• DITA 1.3 features are frozen as of May 2014

• Public draft of final 1.3 specification for OASIS final approval process available soon

• Approval targeted for mid 2015

• Implementation in Open Toolkit under way (OT 2.x, DITA Community organization)

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What Can I Do Today?

• New vocabulary immediately usable– Map and topic types and new domains are normal DITA

specializations– DITA 1.3 vocabulary packaged as OT plugin for convenience– Spec is stable—markup design unlikely to change between

now and final approval– OT 2.x is 1.3 support release. Many 1.3 features already

implemented– Most vocabulary also supported by OT 1.x plugins

• New architecture can be implemented as preprocessing for DITA 1.2 processors

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Reminder: Always Backward

Compatible

• All DITA 1.x versions must be backwards compatible with earler 1.x versions

• DITA 1.3 completely backwards compatible

– All DITA 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 documents are valid 1.3 documents

– Behavior of documents should be the same

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QUICK OVERVIEW OF NEW

DITA 1.3 FEATURES

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Lots of New Vocabulary

• MathML and SVG integrations• Troubleshooting: new topic type, note type, task elements• UX window display details map element and <revisionid> attributes• Release management metadata• Learning and training enhancements• @deliveryTarget conditional attribute• <line-through> and <overline> in highlight domain• New <div> base element type• Elements for tagging XML markup• New <sort-as> element• New table attributes for layout control and accessibility• @cascade to control metadata propagation in maps• More…

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Architectural Enhancements

• Scoped keys– Same key reference can resolve to different topics or

text in different parts of a map– Enables cross-deliverable linking

• Branch filtering– Apply different filtering rules to different parts of a

map– Automates replication of map branches for different

sets of conditions

• “this topic” fragment identifier: “#./fig-01”• Cross-deliverable links

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Not Even Talking About

• RELAX NG as master vocabulary grammar format

• Many small-but-important enhancements to base content models

• Specialization enhancments (use structural types as though they were domains)

• Specification improvements

• Stuff we considered but didn’t put in for various reasons

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ARCHITECTURAL ENHANCEMENT:

SCOPED KEYS

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DITA 1.2 Keys

• Indirect addressing for topics:– Assign keys to topics within maps– Refer to keys in topics– Keys resolve through map– Same key can resolve to different topics in different maps– Essential for re-use

• In 1.2, keys are global within a given publication (root map)– Every reference to a key must resolve to the same topic or

text– Limits creation of multi-product or multi-language

publications

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DITA 1.3: Key Scopes

• Named scopes within maps• Unqualified key references resolve to key in current

scope• Key references can be qualified with scope names:

scope1.key-one, scope2.key-one

• Higher maps can override keys defined in scopes• Same key referenced in different scopes can resolve to

different topics• Same topic used in different scopes within same map

can link to different targets• Applies to conref, xref, topicref, etc.

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Scoped Key Use Cases

• Multi-product or multi-language publications– Each product or language is a different scope

– Different text or topics or images for same key in different product or language context

• Combine separate publications into a single publication– Each publication is a separate key scope and defines

its own keys

– No interference between keys defined in each publication

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Cross-Deliverable Links

• Define another publication’s root map as a key scope in your map– Target publication is a “peer” to your publication

– Processors don’t have to process the target map when processing your map

• Can link to keys defined in the target publication using scope-qualified key references

• Enables generation of deliverables with working cross-deliverable links, e.g.: HTML-to-HTML, HTML-to-PDF, PDF-to-PDF, PDF-to-HTML

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ARCHITECTURAL ENHANCEMENT:

BRANCH FILTERING

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DITA 1.2 Filtering

• Filtering conditions apply only to whole publication

• No way to have different conditions applied to different parts of a map

• Can lead to complex and hard-to-manage conditions

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DITA 1.3: Branch Filtering

• Point to DITAVAL files from within topicrefs

• DITAVAL applies to that branch of the map

• For a single branch, can have multiple DITAVAL references– Each DITAVAL produces a new copy of the branch

filtered according to that DITAVAL

– Avoids need to maintain copies of map branches with only different filtering

• Can control how names in duplicated branches are constructed

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Branch Filtering Use Cases

• Multi-platform publications:– <chapter keyref=“installation”>

<ditavalref keyref=“ditaval-osx”/>

<ditavalref keyref=“ditaval-win”/>

<ditavalref keyref=“ditaval-lin”/>

<topicref keyref=“inst-overview”/>

…

</chapter>

• Multi-audience publications

• Multi-product publications

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NEW VOCABULARY

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SVG Integration

• Inline SVG graphics

– <svg-container>

• Can pull in SVG from non-DITA XML files

– <svgref>

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MathML Integration

• MathML domain:– <mathml> element contains <m:math>– Can link to <m:math> elements in non-DITA XML files:

<mathmlref>

• Equation domain:– Elements for identifying semantic equations:

• <equation-inline>, <equation-block>, <equation-figure>

– Can control equation numbering• <equation-number>

– Can have alternate forms of the equation: MathML, image, etc.

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Troubleshooting Support

• New topic type: troubleshooting

– Provides problem/cause/solution structures

• New elements for use within tasks:

– <steptroubleshooting>, <tasktroubleshooting>

– Clearly identifies troubleshooting-specific information

• New “trouble” note type for highlighting troubleshooting-related notes

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UX Window Control

• Specifically for online help• Within maps:

– Define size and position details of windodws to use for showing online help

– <ux-window name=“win-01”width=“400” height=“600” >

• Within topics:– Reference named windows from <resourceid>

elements in topics – <resourceid appid=“myapp”

ux-windowref=“win-01”/>

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Release Management Metadata

• Metadata for maps and topics

– <change-historylist>

– <change-item>

• Lets you capture details about a specific change to the map or topic:

– Who, what, when, why

– References to issue-tracker issues

• Can be extended with additional metadata

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Learning and Training

Enhancements

• New learingObjectMap and learningGroupMap map types

• New learning2 domain for interactions (assessments):– Allows block elements in questions, answers, and

feedback

– Same semantics and question types as DITA 1.2 learning domain

– Can be used with 1.2 learning domain

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@deliveryTarget Conditional

Attribute

• Lets you have deliverable-specific content:

– PDF, EPUB, HTML, online help, etc.

• Specialization of @props

• Includes sample subject scheme map that defines a set of typical values

• Can use any values you want

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Highlight Domain Enhancements

• New element types:

– <line-through>

– <overline>

• Completes the set of line-based highlighting (underline, overline, line-through)

• Note: Can use existing @status=“deleted” to indicate deletions

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XML Markup Tagging

• XML domain

• Elements for tagging mentions of XML elements, attributes, etc.

• Useful for documenting XML vocabularies

• Used by the DITA 1.3 spec

• XML domain specializes “markup domain”

– General elements for indentifying any kind of markup-related names: <markupname>

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New <div> Base Element Type

• Like DITA 1.2 <sectiondiv>

• Can go in body or section

• Specialization base for learning2 elements

• No semantic other than containment

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SUMMARY

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Reuse Support Features

• Scoped keys and branch filtering satisfy most of the reuse requirements not met in DITA 1.2

• “This topic” fragment identifier makes links within conrefs work properly

• Branch filtering makes multi-product or multi-language or multi-audience publications possible

• Cross-deliverable linking allows flexibility in packaging of content into deliverables

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Vocabulary: Key Requirements,

Relevant Standards

• Integration of MathML and SVG aligns DITA with HTML5 and EPUB3

• Troubleshooting and release management markup addresses important Technical Communication requirements

• Learning2 domain makes question and answer markup useable for typical Publishing use cases

• UX enhancements important for online help delivery

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In Short

• DITA 1.3 fills in important feature holes left in DITA 1.2

• Iterative improvement in vocabulary• No changes to existing semantics, processing

rules, etc.• Key scopes and branch filtering critical for

authors but challenging for CCMS and authoring tool vendors

• Highlights importance of Information Architect role within writing teams

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Resources

• OASIS DITA Technical Committee: https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=dita

• OASIS DITA Adoption Technical Committee: https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=dita-adoption

• Kris Eberlein’s DITA 1.3 Overview: http://dita.xml.org/sites/dita.xml.org/files/overview-of-dita-1.3.pdf

• DITA Open Toolkit: https://dita-ot.github.io• DITA Community Resources GitHub project:

http://www.dita-community.org• Me: ekimber@contrext.com, http://contrext.com

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