I agree with the comments that Chris Nitchie and Tom Magliery
provided to the DITA TC mailing list
Overall, I think this is a good and welcome article. There are some
technical inaccuracies that should be fixed before it is released
for general use. I'll split my comments into two categories below:
"Things that need to be fixed" and "General comments".
Things that need to be fixed
- The date on the cover and footer does not match the
date of the latest revision in the Document History.
- deliveryTarget:
- Change "information architects can use subjectScheme
attributes to control @deliveryTarget values" to "information
architects can use subjectScheme maps to control the values
for the @deliveryTarget attribute."
- Change "it allows information architects to preprocess
content targeted for specific output types" to "it allows
information architects to target content for specific output
types."
- Filtering Attributes Can Now Be Grouped: The content
here is quite off. It's always (DITA 1.0 and forward) been
possible to have audience="administrator programmer"; that's NOT
new in DITA 1.3. I suggest conferring with Robert Anderson to
clarify the use cases for grouping filtering
attributes -- that's what is new in 1.3 -- it's not simple and
will be difficult to explain for a non-technical audience.
- Learning and Training Specialization: The
statement "In DITA 1.2, writer were restricted to creating a
single paragraph for question-and-answer exchanges" is
misleading. Yes, it was a single element specialized from
<p>. But the problem was that it allowed ONLY phrase-level
content -- no figures, lists, tables, etc. For 1.3, the new
element is specialized from <div> and so allows everything
that can be contained within <div>: multiple paragraphs,
lists, figures, etc.
General comments
- Suggest that the title simply be changed to "DITA 1.3 from
A-Z"
- Suggest adding a revision to the Document History: "Edits
based on feedback from the OASIS DITA Technical Committee."
- The TOC uses "init-style capitalization," but there are a few
noticeable exceptions: "Key scope," "Sorting element," and
"Table element."
- Branch Filtering: The statement "[<ditavalref>] can
operate at multiple levels with more than one behaviour" is
unclear.
- The term "information architects is capitalized in some places
and not in others. Pick one convention and stick with it.
I did no have time to go through the entire article.
--
Best,
Kris
Kristen James Eberlein
Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee
Principal consultant, Eberlein Consulting
www.eberleinconsulting.com
+1 919 682-2290; kriseberlein (skype)
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