DITA Project Enhancements

A DITA project file defines a set of deliverables. For each deliverable you have a context containing the published DITA Map and filters. The deliverable also specifies one or more transtypes, for each transtype specifying a set of parameter names and values. The file format of the DITA Project can be either XML or JSON. So what could we do with the DITA Project in Oxygen?

Publishing

In the future the DITA Open Toolkit (probably version 3.4 or 4.0) will allow publishing multiple deliverables by providing such a DITA project from the command line.

Editing the DITA Project

We need a special framework containing a schema, custom CSS for editing the DITA project in the Oxygen Author visual editing mode. We also need an ANT-based transformation scenario for publishing the DITA project.

Adding the DITA Project in the "Master Files" folder

Once such a DITA project is added to the "Master Files" folder Oxygen could parse it and obtain a list of (root map, filter) pairs. We can use this list of root maps when renaming or moving content (topics, maps, resources) in the Project view. We can use the (root map, filter) pairs to allow in the DITA Maps Manager selecting such a pair if somebody wants to edit a topic in such a particular context.

Using the DITA Project information for editing

We have a specific drop-down "Filters" button both in the DITA Maps manager view and in the main editing area. The button takes effect over all the files opened in the application. We also have a "Root map" combo box in the DITA Maps Manager. Again, it takes effect over all the maps and topics opened in the application. The DITA Project would contribute (root map, filter) pairs which could be contributed in the UI. Where could we contribute them? Maybe the "Root map" combo box could become a "Contexts" combo box listing either DITAVAL files or (map, filter) pairs. If we want to allow for certain files people to use certain editing contexts (thus avoiding to apply the editing context on a per-application wide basis) we have an architectural problem, the DITA Keys resolver is more or less a singleton object, but you would need sometimes multiple such keys resolvers.

Using the DITA Project for the "Validate and check for completeness" action

Right now the "Validate and check for completeness" starts validation from a particular DITA Map and has a set of DITAVAL filters which can be set. Maybe if a DITA Project is opened in the main editing area, we could have a special "Validation" button for it on the toolbar, validating all the DITA Maps with all the filters specified inside it.

DITA Project extensibility

From what I discussed with Jarno, ideally in the DITA project file we could include our own XML tags from a specific namespace. In this way, for a certain deliverable context we could for example also define the "reusable" content folders, the "images" folders, information which could be used for information displayed in our "DITA Reusable Components" view.