Re: [dita-help] Context-Sensitivity

[Deborah_Pickett@moldflow.com]

"Tony Self" <tself@hyperwrite.com>
wrote on 16/03/2008 03:14:31 PM:
> I wonder if we can get some discussion going on how context-
> sensitivity might be approached in DITA. 
> If DITA embraces the objective of separation of content from form,
> do context-hooks belong in the DITA content, or are they part of the
> presentation layer?

I can see arguments for placing it in the topic, and
for placing it in the map.  It depends on the type of hook.

Examples from our software: we have many different
types of graphical plots, each with their own ID (example: plot 10000 might
be the Time To Fill Plastic Part plot).  Here, we tell the topic that
describes this plot that it is the help for plot 10000.  When the
accompanying software displays plot 10000, the user should be shown the
matching help topic.  In this case, it makes sense to do it at the
topic level, because this association is invariant.  But for a "What's
New in $product" topic, which is launched from the Help > What's
New menu item in the application, I would argue that the hook is only relevant
to this particular deliverable, implying that putting the context ID into
the map is the right thing to do.

When I say "put it in the map", I am avoiding
the question of whether it goes in (1) as a child <topicmeta> at
the point where that topicref goes; (2) into a reltable elsewhere in the
map; or even (3) into a non-DITA XML file, which both Software Engineering
and Documentation groups can edit, and which is parsed during the help
build.  This last one is probably stretching the definition of "map",
but it might be right for organizations where context IDs are more of a
collaboration between Software Engineering and Documentation.

Moldflow puts all context-sensitive help hook ids
into the topic, for the record.  This wasn't really a conscious decision;
it was more a result of the historical migration that our topics did from
their previous non-DITA incarnation.  Moving some to the maps is on
our to-do list.

-- 
Deborah Pickett
Information Architect, Moldflow Pty Ltd, Melbourne
Deborah_Pickett@moldflow.com