In this DCL Webinar, long-time DITA champion Don Day will talk about the basic principles of lightweight structured authoring and the current work of the OASIS Lightweight DITA Subcommittee along those lines. And since this is a work in progress, Don will lay out some practical steps you can take today to start taking advantage of some of these principles as we anticipate the Subcommittee's eventual recommendations.

1. Anticipating
Lightweight DITA
Don R. Day
Learning by Wrote
15 October 2015

2. Valuable Content Transformed
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• Document Digitization
• XML and HTML Conversion
• eBook Production
• Hosted Solutions
• Big Data Automation
• Conversion Management
• Editorial Services
• Harmonizer

3. Experience the DCL Difference
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DCL blends years of conversion experience with cutting-edge
technology and the infrastructure to make the process easy
and efficient.
• World-Class Services
• Leading-Edge Technology
• Unparalleled Infrastructure
• US-Based Management
• Complex-Content Expertise
• 24/7 Online Project Tracking
• Automated Quality Control
• Global Capabilities

4. We Serve a Very Broad
Client Base . . .
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5. . . . Spanning All Industries
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• Aerospace
• Associations
• Defense
• Distribution
• Education
• Financial
• Government
• Libraries
• Life Sciences
• Manufacturing
• Medical
• Museums
• Periodicals
• Professional
• Publishing
• Reference
• Research
• Societies
• Software
• STM
• Technology
• Telecommunications
• Universities
• Utilities

6. Agenda
• Basic principles of the project
• The OASIS Lightweight DITA Subcommittee
• Practical steps for now
• Looking ahead (anticipation!)
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7. Basic Principles of the Project
• Ease adoption by groups who don't need all the features of
full DITA
• Have familiar features
• Use some features of DITA 1.3 for doctype design
• Processing-compatible with DITA 1.2
• Standardize the many lightweight implementations of DITA
• Encourage innovation and ease of developing new solutions
• Meanwhile offering customization for widely different
communities
• Provide a lightweight starting point and be easy to extend;
alternative to starting with full DITA and then subsetting
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8. Standard Disclaimer
• This activity is a work in progress, and it's likely to change
• You are welcome to join the ideation
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9. The OASIS Lightweight
DITA Subcommittee
• Public proposal April 2014
• First meeting Sept 2014
• Chaired by Michael Priestley, IBM Enterprise Content
Technology Strategist
• OASIS Lightweight DITA SC site
• Mailing List
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10. Pace of activity
• Independent of DITA 1.3 schedule
• Which may be approved by mid-December 2015!
• Paced by discovery and testing
• Hence:
• Won't be this year (why it was decoupled from DITA 1.3)
• Might be 2016
• Will be before DITA 2.0
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11. It’s in the picture, though
Photo credit: Michael Foley Photography / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND
DITA 2.0
Lightweight DITA
DITA 1.3
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12. IBM categories of use
(per Michael Priestley):
• Contribution: SME (developer, customer, etc.) creating
content to be used by a full DITA system
• Collaboration: SME maintaining content that is used by a
full DITA system
• Parallel adoption: authoring team with need for
lightweight DITA can share CMS, publishing capabilities
with full DITA team
• New adoption: authoring team in a company with no
existing DITA usage can start with lightweight DITA and
then evolve to full DITA where it makes sense
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13. Use cases from the team
• Marketing content and HTML5 mappings
• Training content and EPUB mappings
• Developer content and both Markdown and
HTML5 mappings
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14. More
• DITA and HTML5 for educational publishing and
EPUB
• Simple DITA templates to allow educators to
create curriculum plans, lessons, and learning
modules
• DITA and plain-text dialects such as Markdown
(for things like developer-created API specs)
• Lightweight DITA templates for a much simpler
set of learning and training content types
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15. And More!
• As easy to use as MadCap Flare for engineer
knowledge capture
• Hub for markup interchange/single focus for
interoperability
• Lower perception of DITA complexity
• simpler editing experience
• simpler development experience
• simpler conceptual experience
• As daunting as a newborn kitten
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16. Practical Steps for Now
• Follow the email discussion
• Get the latest package
• Only DTDs and sample docs for now
• Maybe some functional plugins to come
• Experiment and contribute (ideas, reviews,
implementations)
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17. What could it look like?
• First, a look under the hood/bonnet
• And then some existing sites that would have no
problem being based on LW DITA
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18. The raw bits, current version
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19. One popular doc site…
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20. Another topic-oriented site
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21. How can I use it?
• Processing:
• DITA OT
• Other open source in progress
• Authoring:
• SimplyXML.com (committed to implement)
• Other editor vendors watching the progress
•
• Big IF: degree of adoption affects everyone
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22. Handle with care!
• Be prepared to adapt
along the way
• Likely to be impacted:
• Doctypes
• Some content models or
element names
• Specializations (all
experimental at the
moment)
• Dependent output
transforms
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23. Looking ahead (anticipation!)
• Simplified specialization (components)
• Specialization by template
• Direct content for the Web
• And hopefully, unexpected new uses!
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24. What will you do with
Lightweight DITA?
• Q and A…
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