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Just forwarding Don's post...maybe something we should discuss on the
next FA Edboard call?
-----Original Message-----
From: dita-users@yahoogroups.com [mailto:dita-users@yahoogroups.com] On
Behalf Of Don Day
Sent: Wednesday, May 03, 2006 2:27 PM
To: dita-users@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [dita-users] DITA User Guide
dita-users@yahoogroups.com wrote on 05/03/2006 12:49:36 PM:
...
> Believe me, it's a heck of a lot better than trying to struggle
> through the docs on SourceForge!
...
I share the sentiment, Keith. We began the documentation at the site as
a demo of the tool capability--that navigation is all based on
processing ditamaps that pull in bits and pieces of extant
documentation, some of it
for end users, some of it for developers. Understandably, the writing
style is inconsistent and the interface looks like the unarchitected
collection of pieceparts that it is.
One suggestion has been to leave only developer docs at the SF site and
then encourage users to go to http://dita.xml.org for more of the
user-oriented documentation. Another is to set up a wiki at the SF
address itself and then use appropriate linking to provide separate
paths into developer and user documentation (more easily updateable by
being on a Wiki site). I don't have enough information to decide on a
particular path yet... what would be your preference for revamping the
division of information between the project site at Sourceforge and the
other community items at the DITA Focus Area (dita.xml.org)?
Another major activity that is going on now is that Anna van Raaphorst
has volunteered to update the DITA Open Toolkit Users Guide that was
contributed by IBM to the Toolkit last fall (not the same as the Comtech
"Introduction to DITA"--what the subject line above should actually
say).
We are making progress on this update, and could probably start posting
some incremental builds soon. This document is scheduled to be
completed in about the same timeframe as the DITA-OT 1.3 update later
this summer.
Several people have asked before to be part of this effort--if you are
still interested, please let me know and I'll connect you with Anna,
whom I regard as the "project manager" for this sub-project of the
Toolkit. The book is now processible as a bookmap using the current
DITA toolkit, but a lot of work remains to make it apply specifically to
the DITA Toolkit.
One of the signficant issues for this current project is enabling
writers to overcome the barrier of using CVS for checkin/checkout of
work in progress. If you know of any CVS-interfacing tools that are
easy for writers to use, again please let me know so that we can upload
the updates more readily for all to see! BTW, instead of CVS, another
tool called Subversion could be in our future soon. The same things
apply with regard to ease of use for non-programmers!
Regards,
--
Don Day
Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee
IBM Lead DITA Architect
Email: dond@us.ibm.com
11501 Burnet Rd. MS9033E015, Austin TX 78758
Phone: +1 512-838-8550
T/L: 678-8550
"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"
--T.S. Eliot
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