Presents an overview of what's new in DITA 1.3 as of November 2014. Presented at the Tekom conference, Stuttgart, Germany, Nov 2014.

1. What's new in DITA 1.3?
The new features in DITA 1.3 and
how you might use them
Eliot Kimber
Contrext, LLC
Tekom 2014
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2. About the Author
• Independent consultant focusing on DITA analysis,
design, and implementation
• Doing SGML and XML for cough 30 years cough
• Founding member of the DITA Technical Committee
• Founding member of the XML Working Group
• Co-editor of HyTime standard (ISO/IEC 10744)
• Primary developer and founder of the DITA for
Publishers project
• Author of DITA for Practitioners, Vol 1 (XML Press)
• More DITA 1.3 accepted proposals than any other TC
member
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3. DITA VERSION 1.3 ACTIVITY
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4. DITA 1.3 Status
• DITA 1.3 features are frozen as of May 2014
• Thorough internal review of 1.3 draft
specification spring 2014
• Public draft of final 1.3 specification for OASIS
final approval process available soon
• Approval targeted for mid 2015
• Implementation in Open Toolkit under way
(OT 2.x, DITA Community organization)
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5. What Can I Do Today?
• New vocabulary immediately usable
– Map and topic types and new domains are normal DITA
specializations
– DITA 1.3 vocabulary packaged as OT plugin for convenience
– Spec is stable—markup design unlikely to change between
now and final approval
– OT 2.x is 1.3 support release. Many 1.3 features already
implemented
– Most vocabulary also supported by OT 1.x plugins
• New architecture can be implemented as
preprocessing for DITA 1.2 processors
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6. Reminder: Always Backward
Compatible
• All DITA 1.x versions must be backwards
compatible with earler 1.x versions
• DITA 1.3 completely backwards compatible
– All DITA 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 documents are valid 1.3
documents
– Behavior of documents should be the same
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7. QUICK OVERVIEW OF NEW
DITA 1.3 FEATURES
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8. Lots of New Vocabulary
• MathML and SVG integrations
• Troubleshooting: new topic type, note type, task elements
• UX window display details map element and <revisionid> attributes
• Release management metadata
• Learning and training enhancements
• @deliveryTarget conditional attribute
• <line-through> and <overline> in highlight domain
• New <div> base element type
• Elements for tagging XML markup
• New <sort-as> element
• New table attributes for layout control and accessibility
• @cascade to control metadata propagation in maps
• More…
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9. Architectural Enhancements
• Scoped keys
– Same key reference can resolve to different topics or
text in different parts of a map
– Enables cross-deliverable linking
• Branch filtering
– Apply different filtering rules to different parts of a
map
– Automates replication of map branches for different
sets of conditions
• “this topic” fragment identifier: “#./fig-01”
• Cross-deliverable links
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10. Not Even Talking About
• RELAX NG as master vocabulary grammar
format
• Many small-but-important enhancements to
base content models
• Specialization enhancments (use structural
types as though they were domains)
• Specification improvements
• Stuff we considered but didn’t put in for
various reasons
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11. ARCHITECTURAL ENHANCEMENT:
SCOPED KEYS
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12. Scoped Key Use Cases
• Multi-product or multi-language publications
– Each product or language is a different scope
– Different text or topics or images for same key in
different product or language context
• Combine separate publications into a single
publication
– Each publication is a separate key scope and defines
its own keys
– No interference between keys defined in each
publication
• Break single publication into multiple linked
publications (cross-deliverable linking)
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13. DITA 1.2 Keys
• Indirect addressing for topics:
– Assign keys to topics within maps
– Refer to keys in topics
– Keys resolve through map
– Same key can resolve to different topics in different maps
– Essential for re-use
• In 1.2, keys are global within a given publication (root
map)
– Every reference to a key must resolve to the same topic or
text
– Limits creation of multi-product or multi-language
publications
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14. DITA 1.3: Key Scopes
• Named scopes within maps
• Unqualified key references resolve to key in current scope
• Key references can be qualified with scope names: scope1.key-one,
scope2.key-one
• Higher maps can override keys defined in scopes
• Same key referenced in different scopes can resolve to
different topics
• Same topic used in different scopes within same map can link
to different targets
• Applies to conref, xref, topicref, etc.
• Enables cross-deliverable linking
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15. ARCHITECTURAL ENHANCEMENT:
BRANCH FILTERING
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16. Branch Filtering Use Cases
• Multi-platform publications:
– <chapter keyref=“installation”>
<ditavalref keyref=“ditaval-osx”/>
<ditavalref keyref=“ditaval-win”/>
<ditavalref keyref=“ditaval-lin”/>
<topicref keyref=“inst-overview”/>
…
</chapter>
• Multi-audience publications
• Multi-product publications
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17. DITA 1.2 Filtering
• Filtering conditions apply only to whole
publication
• No way to have different conditions applied to
different parts of a map
• Can lead to complex and hard-to-manage
conditions
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18. DITA 1.3: Branch Filtering
• Point to DITAVAL files from within topicrefs
• DITAVAL applies to that branch of the map
• For a single branch, can have multiple DITAVAL
references
– Each DITAVAL produces a new copy of the branch
filtered according to that DITAVAL
– Avoids need to maintain copies of map branches with
only different filtering
• Can control how names in duplicated branches
are constructed
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19. NEW VOCABULARY
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20. SVG Integration
• Inline SVG graphics
– <svg-container>
• Can pull in SVG from non-DITA XML files
– <svgref>
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21. MathML Integration
• MathML domain:
– <mathml> element contains <m:math>
– Can link to <m:math> elements in non-DITA XML files:
<mathmlref>
• Equation domain:
– Elements for identifying semantic equations:
• <equation-inline>, <equation-block>, <equation-figure>
– Can control equation numbering
• <equation-number>
– Can have alternate forms of the equation: MathML,
image, etc.
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22. Troubleshooting Support
• New topic type: troubleshooting
– Provides problem/cause/solution structures
• New elements for use within tasks:
– <steptroubleshooting>, <tasktroubleshooting>
– Clearly identifies troubleshooting-specific
information
• New “trouble” note type for highlighting
troubleshooting-related notes
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23. UX Window Control
• Specifically for online help
• Within maps:
– Define size and position details of windodws to use for
showing online help
– <ux-window name=“win-01”
width=“400” height=“600” >
• Within topics:
– Reference named windows from <resourceid> elements in
topics
– <resourceid appname=“myapp”
appid=“control-123”
ux-windowref=“win-01”/>
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24. Release Management Metadata
• Metadata for maps and topics
– <change-historylist>
– <change-item>
• Lets you capture details about a specific
change to the map or topic:
– Who, what, when, why
– References to issue-tracker issues
• Can be extended with additional metadata
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25. Learning and Training
Enhancements
• New learingObjectMap and
learningGroupMap map types
• New learning2 domain for interactions
(assessments):
– Allows block elements in questions, answers, and
feedback
– Same semantics and question types as DITA 1.2
learning domain
– Can be used with 1.2 learning domain
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26. @deliveryTarget Conditional
Attribute
• Lets you have deliverable-specific content:
– PDF, EPUB, HTML, online help, etc.
• Specialization of @props
• Includes sample subject scheme map that
defines a set of typical values
• Can use any values you want
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27. Highlight Domain Enhancements
• New element types:
– <line-through>
– <overline>
• Completes the set of line-based highlighting
(underline, overline, line-through)
• Note: Can use existing @status=“deleted” to
indicate deletions
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28. XML Markup Tagging
• XML domain
• Elements for tagging mentions of XML
elements, attributes, etc.
• Useful for documenting XML vocabularies
• Used by the DITA 1.3 spec
• XML domain specializes “markup domain”
– General elements for indentifying any kind of
markup-related names: <markupname>
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29. New <div> Base Element Type
• Like DITA 1.2 <sectiondiv>
• Can go in body or section
• Specialization base for learning2 elements
• No semantic other than containment
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30. SUMMARY
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31. Reuse Support Features Nearly
Complete
• Scoped keys and branch filtering satisfy most
of the reuse requirements not met in DITA 1.2
• “This topic” fragment identifier makes links
within conrefs work properly
• Branch filtering makes multi-product or multi-language
or multi-audience publications
possible
• Cross-deliverable linking allows flexibility in
packaging of content into deliverables
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32. Vocabulary: Key Requirements,
Relevant Standards
• Integration of MathML and SVG aligns DITA with
HTML5 and EPUB3
• Troubleshooting and release management
markup addresses important Technical
Communication requirements
• Learning2 domain makes question and answer
markup useable for typical Publishing use cases
• UX enhancements important for online help
delivery
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33. In Short
• DITA 1.3 fills in important feature holes left in
DITA 1.2
• Iterative improvement in vocabulary
• No changes to existing semantics, processing
rules, etc.
• Key scopes and branch filtering critical for
authors but challenging for CCMS and authoring
tool vendors
• Highlights importance of Information Architect
role within writing teams
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34. Resources
• OASIS DITA Technical Committee: https://www.oasis-open.
org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=dita
• OASIS DITA Adoption Technical Committee:
https://www.oasis-open.
org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=dita-adoption
• Kris Eberlein’s DITA 1.3 Overview:
http://dita.xml.org/sites/dita.xml.org/files/overview-of-dita-
1.3.pdf
• DITA Open Toolkit: https://dita-ot.github.io
• DITA Community Resources GitHub project:
http://www.dita-community.org
• Me: ekimber@contrext.com, http://contrext.com
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