In part three of this article we'll look into publication and transformation within the DITA solution.
Transforming DITA to HTML
The main difference to other systems is that, unlike PDFs, HTML is not an export format. Html and websites in general have become increasingly important. Nowadays, people expect a lot from websites. Interaction, searching, and update speeds are the weak points of a system that exports HTML. Sitecore is a web content management system that focuses specifically on these aspects. The content items (topics, tasks or product information, etc) are dynamically served to a browser. This makes it possible to personalise the site.
This begins with offering different languages depending on choice of language or URL (.nl is Dutch, the same environment .com is English) and goes as far as displaying, not displaying or displaying pages differently showing based on authenticity. This is the same as Single Source publishing, but taken a step further.
Publication and transformations of DITA content
The dynamic nature of the content management system also makes it possible to automatically create FAQs or a Top 10 based on visitor data. And special attention can be focused on the most popular topics/tasks. Visitors can give feedback on topics (scores, comments), which in turn is directly shown on the website(s).
Product information pages can show related topics/tasks or entire manuals. This is possible these topics are linked to the product in question.
The use of a generic content management system also enables specific data structures that are not supported DITA to be shown and used. This is achieved by exporting to generic topics or tasks. Examples include product information, data from an external database, or “system message tables”.
Generating PDF-files from DITA through XSLT
PDF (html/print) and other document formats are viewed as a type of export. Under this system a folder can be converted into a PDF via a simple click (or scheduled). XSLT is used export the item on behalf of the transformation to XSL-FO. Apache FOP is used to generate the PDF files. For different versions of a manual, other XSLTs are uploaded and linked to an export definition.
The exported PDFs are directly available for downloading from the website. This system allows for multiple output definitions to be created of a folder. These can correspond with the dimensions that concern the map in question. In this case this concerns: language-country, brand, product, style, audience.
This article gives a brief overview of the DITA-CMS solution which IQuality created for Neopost. The author was only able to discuss several aspects and features of the CMS. For more information, or if you have any questions, please contact IQuality or add your comment below.