initial release of DITA-plugin-utilities

Hi all,

In an effort to encourage the use of DITA specialization, I released two utilities to create and report DITA grammar modules:

https://github.com/chrispy-snps/DITA-plugin-utilities

There are two linux-based utilities provided:

make_dita_grammar.pl - make DITA RelaxNG grammar plugin modules from high-level descriptions
content_model.pl - show the content model of a DITA RelaxNG topicshell or mapshell module

make_dita_grammar.pl lets you create DITA grammars from high-level XML descriptions. For example,

The output is a plugin directory that is ready to be placed in your DITA-OT plugins/ directory and installed/integrated.

content_model.pl lets you report the content model of DITA topicshell and mapshell modules:

$ content_model.pl ex1/rng/myTopicShell.rng -attributes none

abstract = element abstract { (text | dl | \div | fig | fig1 | image | lines | lq | note | object | ol | p | pre | simpletable | sl | table | ul | boolean | cite | keyword | ph | q | term | \text | tm | xref | state | data | data-about | foreign | unknown | shortdesc | draft-comment | fn | indextermref | indexterm | r

equired-cleanup)+ }

alt = element alt { (text | data | data-about | foreign | unknown | keyword | term | \text | draft-comment | required-cleanup | ph)+ }

audience = element audience { empty }

author = element author { (text | data | data-about | foreign | unknown | keyword | term | \text)+ }

body = element body { (dl | \div | fig | fig1 | image | lines | lq | note | object | ol | p | pre | simpletable | sl | table | ul | data | data-about | draft-comment | foreign | unknown | required-cleanup | bodydiv | example | section)* }

...omitted...

topic = element topic { title, titlealts?, (shortdesc | abstract)?, prolog?, body?, related-links?, topic* }

ul = element ul { (data | data-about)*, li+ }

unknown = element unknown { (topic? | _1 | text)+ }

vrm = element vrm { empty }

vrmlist = element vrmlist { vrm+ }

xref = element xref { (text | boolean | keyword | ph | q | term | \text | tm | state | cite | data | data-about | draft-comment | foreign | unknown | required-cleanup | image | desc)+ }

Together, the utilities allow you to get into a very tight loop of writing high-level grammar descriptions in one window, and viewing the content models of the actual DITA plugin you’ve created in the other.

I posted more examples of both utilities here:

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/dita-users/conversations/topics/44750

and there are some examples of input XML files and the generated output plugin files in the Git repo at

https://github.com/chrispy-snps/DITA-plugin-utilities/tree/master/examples

This is an initial release, so expect bugs and rough edges. But, it's working enough that we're using it in-house for grammar creation. I am hoping that this could be a game-changer in how DITA is used. Please feel free to ask questions.

-----
Chris Papademetrious

Tech Writer, Implementation Group

(610) 628-9718 home office

(570) 460-6078 cell

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