Hi Mark,
Links across publications could use
the same technique as I've described for chapters. I used chapters as my
primary example because I wanted to use an example in which the same reference
might resolve as cross-deliverable or same-deliverable depending on the
including map and build process.
Michael Priestley, Senior Technical
Staff Member (STSM)
Lead IBM DITA Architect
http://dita.xml.org/blog/25
From:
Mark Poston <>
To:
Michael Priestley/Toronto/IBM@IBMCA,
"" <>
Date:
09/06/2011 11:58 AM
Subject:
Re: [dita] Scenario for cross-deliverable
referencing
Hi Michael,
Forgive if I have missed something from
previous discussions about this particular requirement.
Should the scenario be expanded to also
include links across publications (maps) and not just limited to chapters
with a book? This is certainly a situation which we have come up against
with customers, where, for example, a chapter in a user guide may refer
to a chapter in an admin guide.
Or, are you implying this through the
use of a series of nested maps – where each mapref links to a complete
publication?
Kind regards
Mark Poston
Senior Technical Consultant
Mekon Ltd.
Tel. +44 20 8722 8461
Mob: +44 7515 906032
Skype: mark_mekon.com
Twitter: mekonmark
From: Michael Priestley <>
Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2011 15:19:46 +0100
To: ""
<>
Subject: [dita] Scenario for cross-deliverable referencing
This was my todo from last week's mtg - sorry I'm leaving it to the wire.
This describes a solution that can be implemented today - I still think
there more work to be done, including:
- a general solution for key scoping (but not deliverable-based scoping
since the boundaries of deliverables are mutable, as I'm trying to show
here).
- a standardized approach for cross-deliverable referencing - if we want
to encourage this approach, for example, or propose an alternative - but
we should be providing some guidance to vendors on how to implement so
that the solution is cross-vendor compatible
scenario:
- we need to produce PDFs for each chapter of a book, as well as a single
big PDF that contains all chapters
- the chapters contain cross-references to content in other chapters, which
needs to be resolved as a cross-deliverable link in the single-chapter
PDFs but as a local link in the single big PDF case
- each chapter is represented by a separate map
- each topicref in the map has a uniquely addressable key (using whatever
general scoping mechanism we choose to implement)
- the book as a whole is represented by a master map that pulls in the
others
solution for individual chapter case:
- for each chapter, execute a partial PDF build, which does not transform
the content but does preprocess the map to turn each topicref href into
a form appropriate for the deliverable being produced (ie, including the
filename of the PDF being produced, with appropriate anchor syntax)
this results in a deliverable-specific set
of key mappings
- for each chapter, create a master map that includes the chapter being
built and then resource-only inclusionsof the deliverable-specific maps
for all other chapters
- for each chapter's master map, execute a full PDF build
this results in a chapter-level PDF with all
links to other chapter resolved correctly
solution for whole book case:
- build normally
Michael Priestley, Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM)
Lead IBM DITA Architect
http://dita.xml.org/blog/25
