MadCap DITA Teaser Email

[KevinDAmery]

Canadians generally can figure out all three ways of writing it (2008-10,29, 10-29-2008, and 29-10-2008). The flip side is we're never really sure what to do when we have to write a date ourselves. (In my docs I actually put the abbreviation for the month in so no one gets confused....)

[NorthEast]

I got a watch last year that only does MM-DD-YY, and it still confuses me.
So, if I'm late, I'm very late.

[LTinker68]

I got a watch last year that only does MM-DD-YY, and it still confuses me.

So you must love days like 08-08-08. Next year there's 09-09-09. So for at least one day a year for the next three years, you won't be late.

[SteveS]

Is it Friday yet?

That's the only date I'm really interested in...

[RamonS]

I'm advocating the reverse work week for years. Work Saturday and Sunday and get the rest of the week off.

[Robotman]

I recommend to get used to how the rest of the world does it.

Add the metric system (international system of units) too

[RamonS]

Yea, that is what I meant with the English ditching the English system. Many didn't like it, but after a month complaining they seemed to have gotten over it. I am sure it isn't easy, but it is way more difficult to figure out how many feet are in a furlong and how many furlongs are in a mile, or what the difference between a dry ounce and a liquid ounce is. By far the worst and most idiotic unit of measure is the American Wire Gauge, which by the way applies to all conductive wire types, but not steel. I take 13/16th of an inch anytime over 23 AWG.

[forfear]

I now think the MadCap DITA email is NOT referring to a new product....maybe...
I think its just to refer to Sharon Burton's upcoming DITA webinar...maybe...since it 29th October

[forfear]

Did any one see this?


http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... =13&t=7171

[NorthEast]

Yep, looks like they need some test files to feed to a DITA sausage-machine.

[helen]

Tomorrow is the big day then, although the hype around DITA seems to have died off recently.

[bbuchko]

OK, I'd heard DITA bandied about, but I haven't really had any contact with it. Is it just an XML standard that defines tags and doc structure? If so, will MadCap DITA (if it exists) most likely just be Flare with some other stuff going on behind the scenes? What would be the benefit, though? I've browsed the IBM FAQ that Dave posted and it looks like the output will be basically the same as Flare's current output.

Thanks in advance to the DITA experts for sharing your knowledge.

EDIT: My ignorance is really showing with this post, I realize. After reading a bit more, I think I see that the benefit of XML is that it's very rigid. I'm just grasping at straws, but maybe MadCap DITA will actually let a superuser define the structure of different specialized topics and then the authors will be free to just pick a type and fill in fields. Then, they'll know exactly what content to include and they won't have to worry about formatting or picking styles, etc. Well, I guess the body content will need to be formatted, but that's still a lot less work for other standard elements.

[doc_guy]

Speaking very generally...

DITA is an important component in a documentation tool because there are many companies that currently use DITA. DITA into Flare would mean that people with existing content could easily import their DITA projects into Flare, and then use Flare's tools to create multiple output formats. DITA out of Flare would mean that people who are using Flare as their authoring tool could then output to an acknowledged standard output type. So, I suppose, in theory DITA out of Flare could mean I could create content in Flare and share it with somebody outside my organization who could then use it without needing to own Flare.

But again, those are just some of the general thoughts on why a DITA component from MadCap might be useful. How useful will depend on the implementation, which we should learn more about tomorrow, and in the coming weeks.

[KevinDAmery]

Well, DITA isn't an output format, it's an XML definition that's used for single sourcing purposes. The typical workflow is to author your content so that it conforms to the DITA DTD (Document Type Definition), then build output using XSLT or some other transformation to the various delivery formats you need.

Having said that, if all of the tools involved strictly follow the DITA DTD, you should be able to move files that were authored using one tool into another tool and not have any compatibility issues. So in theory XML files created in, say, Arbortext, structured FrameMaker files, and Flare files would all be interchangeable as long as they complied with the DTD.

In theory.

[doc_guy]

By output format I meant that if you could get DITA files OUT of Flare, then you could pass them on to another person who uses a totally different tool set, and they would just work.

So, in that vein, you could think of a DITA output format, since the original Flare files would have to be converted to an output format that complied with the DITA DTD.

But I think we're basically agreeing here.

[forfear]

The Madcap DITA site has been updated with screenshots of Flare with a DITA output target. So as most of discusssion on this turned out to be true...Madcap would eventually move DITA support into its exisitng products. Its not a new product per se but a new level of product support into its entire toolkit. Since the current Flare authoring workflow is quite DITA like in many many ways.

[NorthEast]

The Madcap DITA site has been updated with screenshots of Flare with a DITA output target.

Looks interesting.

They need to sack their proofreader though.

[helen]

They need to sack their proofreader though.

Interesting read.

[bbuchko]

Thanks for the info, guys. Sounds like it's pretty much what I had in mind.

[LTinker68]

They need to sack their proofreader though.

Saw that, too, although I didn't read the brochure to see if it had any problems. That's the downside of having tech writers as your customer base -- we notice the little stuff.

[NorthEast]

Yep, see also Welcome to the MadCap Flare v4! on the start page.

[forfear]

quite the noisy ol nitpickers we are eh?

but i agree, attention to detail is key when we're all doing all this single-sourcing, indexing stuff. tis a habit we've all learned to develop i guess.

[KevinDAmery]

quite the noisy ol nitpickers we are eh?

I thought that was the official term for technical writer

[Paul Griffiths]

My impression from the screenshots and accompanying text is that Phase 1 will allow you to import DITA files into Flare, converting them into XHTML in the process. From there you can generate any of Flare's usual outputs, or generate DITA files again. (I wonder about the fidelity of this last step. If one imported DITA content and them generated DITA content from it, unedited, would you expect the output to be identical to the input?) Then later, in Phase 2, Flare acquires the ability to create and edit DITA files directly. (And, presumably, open DITA files created elsewhere.)

Does anyone share this impression? Or do you have a different interpretation of MadCap's marketing information?

[KevinDAmery]

As far as I know, that is correct.