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An overview of how to manage variant content in DITA. Includes variables (keyrefs), attribute-based conditions, ditaval files, and conref push. Pre
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contentstrategy101.com
Extreme conditions in DITAflickr: mikebaird
Sarah O’KeefeScriptorium Publishing
❖ Founder and president, Scriptorium Publishing, www.scriptorium.com, North Carolina, USA
❖ Coauthor of Content Strategy 101
❖ Interested in collision of content, publishing, and technology
Sarah O’Keefe @sarahokeefe
❖ Basic conditions
❖ Advanced conditions
❖ Scary conditions
❖ The human element
❖ Surviving extreme conditions
Agenda
Murky conditional requirements are common
flickr: jaybergesen
❖ Variables
❖ Short snippet, like a product name, that changes
❖ Conditional information
❖ Needs to be included or excluded
❖ Topic, block, or inline
❖ Graphics and tables
Classes of text variants
❖ Output
❖ Product
❖ Audience level
❖ Customer type
❖ Customer
❖ and more…
Conditional dimensions
flickr: jenniferwoodardmadazero
<map> <title>DITA Topic Map</title> <keydef keys="clientname"> <topicmeta> <keywords> <keyword>My First Client</keyword> </keywords> </topicmeta> </keydef> <topicref href="sample.dita"/></map>
<p>When we deliver this information to <keyword keyref="clientname"/>...
Map
Topic
Basic conditions
flickr: snowpeak
<p>This paragraph is for everyone.</p><p audience="advanced">This paragraph is only for advanced users.</p>
<note><p> It's possible to do conditional content at the phrase level<ph platform="badidea">, but it's a really terrible idea</ph>. </p></note>
Paragraph
Inline
<p audience="expert" platform="windows" product="X">content goes here</p> <p audience="expert" platform="windows mac" product="X Y Z">other content here</p>
Do not use conditions below the sentence—preferably paragraph—level.
flickr: snowpeak
flickr: snowpeak
<p>The colo<ph xml:lang="en-uk">u</ph>r of money is a very speciali<ph xml:lang="en-uk">s</ph><ph xml:lang="en-uk">z</ph>ed topic.</p>
Please, for the love of all that is holy…NO.
<val> <prop action="include" att="audience" val="expert" /> <prop action="include" att="product" val="X" /></val>
❖ Taxonomy and information architecture much more difficult
❖ Which attributes?
❖ Which attribute values?
❖ How do the attributes combine?
Markup is the small(er) challenge.
❖ Three attributes out of the box.
❖ Then, you must speciali[s|z]e.
❖ Can limit allowed attribute values through authoring tools or subject scheme maps.
Markup is the small(er) challenge.
Complex conditionsflickr: ooocha
<warning audience="ca"> <p> This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.</p> </warning>
<warning audience="ca"> <p> This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.</p> </warning>
<warning audience="usa-ca"><warning audience="ca">
<warning audience="usa-ca"><warning audience="ca-en">
<warning audience="usa-ca"><warning audience="ca-en">
<warning audience="usa-ca"><warning audience="ca" xml:lang= "en-ca"><warning audience="ca" xml:lang= "fr-ca">
Customers lead to complexity.
<p audience="army">
<p audience="army"><p audience="navy">
<p audience="army"><p audience="army navy">
<p audience="military"><p audience="army navy"><p audience="usaf"><p audience="marines"><p audience="coastguard">
And now for the non-U.S. military customer…
<warning audience="military-us-army"><warning audience="military-uk-army">
<warning segment="military" branch="army" country="us" ><warning segment="military" branch="army" country="uk" >
Reuse and conditions
flickr: noaaphotolib
Content references (conrefs)
<p id="framemaker">We recommend FrameMaker if sophisticated PDF formatting is a critical requirement.</p>
Source
... <p conref="fm.dita#id/framemaker" conaction="mark"/> <p conaction="pushafter">Using FrameMaker would eliminate the manual formatting that currently takes up so much production time.</p>
<p id="framemaker">We recommend FrameMaker if sophisticated PDF formatting is a critical requirement.</p>
... <p conref="fm.dita#id/framemaker" conaction="mark"/> <p conaction="pushafter">FrameMaker does not support right-to-left languages (such as Arabic), which ClientB needs.</p>
Source
Client A
Client B
The human element
flickr: danoff
Surviving extreme conditions
flickr: Bruce Guenter
Questions?
flickr: cayce
Contact me
❖ Sarah O’Keefe, Scriptorium Publishing
❖ www.scriptorium.com
❖ Email: [email protected]
❖ Twitter: @sarahokeefe
