IBM User Technologies 11 / 2004 © 2004 IBM Corporation Information development with DITA Ian Larner User Technologies, IBM Hursley Lab, England

Information development with DITA © 2004 IBM Corporation 2 WebSphere information  WebSphere Application Server information centers   [See reference foil screen capture]screen capture  Application Server (product) versions - Express, base, Network Deployment …  Use by others (Business Integration, WebSphere Studio/Rational)  Tasks + concepts, reference (+ custom types)  Views – User goal, “feature”  HTML (and PDF)  Look-and-feel (SWG, WAS, local)  Eclipse (plugins, TOCs, integration)  Components (development and delivery)  “Web time”, dynamic development  Reuse  React (On demand, dynamic, …, automatic)  Reuse, react (On demand, dynamic, …  WebSphere administrative console help…

Information development with DITA © 2004 IBM Corporation 3 Reuse, react (On demand, dynamic, …  WebSphere administrative console help… -GUI help, xhtml pseudo-Eclipse, one local install for all versions, has own look and feel, + restricted linking -Also provided in information center for lookup and task-related reference  Console GUI implemented as Apache Struts framework (  “an open source framework for building Java web applications. “  Struts XML defines  What panels exist  What is on the panel – panes, items, labels, descriptions, buttons, links, data types, ranges, …  Properties define text strings - labels, descriptions  All translated to multiple national languages  Collection panel Collection panel  Detail panel Detail panel  XML can change dynamically, even after translation  Use XSLT to create help file  Discover what’s there, what’s changed  Reuse the same text strings (entities), any national language  Authors add value in prescribed areas, use prescribed metadata  Added value recognized by XSLT and preserved

Information development with DITA © 2004 IBM Corporation 4 Reuse, react (On demand, dynamic, …

Information development with DITA © 2004 IBM Corporation 5 Authoring process  Design  Write - DITA map usage  Write – DITA topics  DITA output

Information development with DITA © 2004 IBM Corporation 6

Information development with DITA © 2004 IBM Corporation 7 DITA value  Reuse  conrefs & metadata (within)  XSL (without)  Customization  Metadata & tag usage  XSL  Automation (XSL)

IBM User Technologies 11 / 2004 © 2004 IBM Corporation Any questions?

Information development with DITA © 2004 IBM Corporation 9 The remaining foils are for reference only  WebSphere Application Server information center screen capture (referenced from main presentation foils)  WebSphere admin console Collection screen capture (referenced from main presentation foils)  WebSphere admin console Detail screen capture (referenced from main presentation foils)  Design (of component, features, and information)  Extra about information design process  Write - DITA map usage  Extra about information development use of DITA maps  Write – DITA topics  Extra about information development in DITA topics

Information development with DITA © 2004 IBM Corporation 10 WebSphere Application Server information center

Information development with DITA © 2004 IBM Corporation 11 WAS v5 administrative console – Collection panel

Information development with DITA © 2004 IBM Corporation 12 WAS v5 administrative console – Detail panel

Information development with DITA © 2004 IBM Corporation 13 Design (of component, features, and information)  Reuse by products – different deliverables  Topic types, tag & metadata use  Vocabulary use  User goal sets (usergoals_was.dita)  Use as default DITA as possible  Customization, not specialization  Writer DITA education, DITA templates, guidelines, weekly workshops, automation  Feature development and ownership  Reuse within component - conref of phrases, tags, topics, topicrefs…  Translation reuse & post-changes  Reuse / conversion from outside the component  Reuse / conversion from GUI XML & use cases

Information development with DITA © 2004 IBM Corporation 14 Write - DITA map usage  Component developed by “feature” teams  Use to plan tasks & concept/ref needed  Write in domain DITA maps  Metadata for domain, user task…  Relationship tables for links – Impose on topic output  Present in WAS goal-oriented views  Create goal-oriented maps on metadata  Create “integrating” maps on metadata sets  Special XSL to process for navigations&xhtml  Minimize translation content

Information development with DITA © 2004 IBM Corporation 15 Write – DITA topics  Use as default DITA as possible  DITA templates, guidelines, for custom usage  DITA entity files for reuse by conref  Conrefs for GUI strings, terms, topic parts  Conrefs between topics (but not recommended)  Conrefs in conrefs(!)  Custom use of metadata with default tags  Audience, platform, WAS version(!), …  Custom use of default tags for UI files  Custom use of XSL to create, change, and output  Epic editor for writing  XSL, Homesite, other for global changes

Information development with DITA © 2004 IBM Corporation 16 DITA output  Use as default process as possible  Xhtml & PDF  Custom XSL to build WAS Eclipse navigations  Custom XSL to add WAS-specific xhtml -content, plugin-specific linking, …  Rexx post-process for topic-specific data  Variable control of build (XSL & other)  Need to run by TSCs (“push-button”)

Information development with DITA © 2004 IBM Corporation 17 Links  WebSphere Application Server V6.0 – product overview   WebSphere Help System download:   Plugins for the WebSphere Application Server information center   Apache Struts framework   Eclipse 