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Subject: DITAbase for conversion
I’m not sure why users need to convert entire
documents into ditabase when perfectly good conversion tools are available to
create individual topics. Most tasks seemed to convert to the “strict”
task model reasonably well unless they are really peculiar. In most cases,
those tasks need to be rewritten, probably before they are converted. We are seeing very little positive coming out of wholesale
conversions of books to ditabase when we have surveyed the productivity issues
around implementing DITA. In fact, the entire idea of “convert first,
think later” seems to have a considerable negative effect on the ability
of an organization to transition to effective, topic-based authoring. Therefore,
the argument that ditabase is most appropriate for conversions seems to me to
foster an undesirable activity and outcome. However, we find that many organizations use ditabase not
for conversion but for authoring “collection files” that contain
varied content to be used for conrefs. Usually such collection files contain
more than one instance of an element, requiring multiple information types to
be presented correctly. For example, if we want to conref several pre-requisite
statements (such as equipment lists), we might “collect” them in a
series of tasks in a ditabase file. Putting them into a ditabase simplifies
content maintenance. I would prefer that ditabase contain the “strict”
task topic rather than the “general” task topic to maintain its appropriate
use for collection files. JoAnn President Comtech Services, Inc. joann.hackos@comtech-serv.com Skype joannhackos |
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