Doing DITA Content Management the Canadian Way

By Barb Mosher (@barbmosher) Apr 10, 2008

Looking for a content management system that enables to you author and publish DITA-based technical documentation? Take a gander over this way. Canadian vendor, IXIASOFT, have just unwrapped the latest release of their XML-based solution — DITA CMS Framework 2.1.

Compatibility with DITA 1.1 is one of several interesting improvements bundled-up in this latest push.

IXIASOFT has been around since 1998 offering their flagship product TEXTXML Server – a native XML database and search engine. The DITA CMS Framework is based on TEXTXML Server. It is one of a very few content management products based on the DITA standard.

What is DITA

Not sure what DITA is? Well here’s an overview:

Dita Overview

DITA, Darwin Information Typing Architecture, is an XML based specification for authoring, managing and publishing technical information. Originally developed by IBM, it became an OASIS standard in June 2005. Version 1.1 of DITA was released in August 2007.

DITA is made up of maps and topics. Maps are like tables of content that link to topics in the sequence they are to be displayed in documents.

Topics are the separation of content so that they can be reused in different deliverables. There is a generic topic type that contains a title element, prolog element for metadata and a body element. It specifies basic three topic types:

Task: Tasks describe how to do something via a series of steps
Concept: Concepts are generally definitions, rules and guidelines
Reference: References are used for describing command syntax, programming instructions and other reference material

Both topics and maps are XML files that can be edited with any DITA-compliant XML editor. The DITA specification also includes rules for publishing DITA content in print, HTML, online Help, and other formats.

Dita Bookmaps

Basic DITA maps help define the structure of how topics are to be viewed, but they don’t have ability to specify how these topics are organized into chapters or preface content. They also can’t indicate covers or boilerplate content. The bookmap specification helps you create these things.

The DITA bookmap is a specialization of the DITA map that enables you to organize your DITA topics in a collection that can then be printed as a book. This specification allows you to create online technical document deliverables and printed based deliverables like PDF documents.

You can create the following structures with a bookmap:

Booktitle: This includes subtitle structures
Bookmeta: A specialization of the topicmeta element in a DITA map, it contains information about the book such as owners, authors, publishing data, etc…
Frontmatter : This is introductory material for a book such as a preface, dedication or instructions. Booklists can also be included (specialized lists of topics)
Unlimited Chapters or Parts
Unlimited Appendices
Backmatter: Information provided at the end of a book such as indices, dedications and amendments
Unlimited retables