"DITAworks is an Eclipse based solution which is built on DITA architecture and supports collaborative modeling, maintaining, publishing of complex documentation arrays."

*instinctools GmbH
Home Forum Blog Product Contact
Entries RSSEntries RSS   Entries RSSComments RSS

Archive for March, 2009

Development Roadmap published

Saturday, March 28th, 2009 by Alexej Spas

I would like to draw some attention to DITAworks development outlook for 2009 that was recently published. It briefly describes major milestones and their targets. Some milestones are already having detailed description of planned functionality.

Roadmap will be regularly updated.

Tags: ,
Posted in Coming soon | No Comments »

Common errors in DITA specializations

Saturday, March 28th, 2009 by Alexej Spas

DITA as information architecture can be seen as a set of best practices for topic-oriented authoring. Besides providing a set of DTDs and rules for authoring, DITA also defines a way to design new information structures customized through custom semantics. This is achieved by process of specialization.

Specialization opens a new dimension for customizing DITA to needs of different enterprises. But doing a valid specialization is not a trivial process. It requires rather deep understanding of DITA internals and command in technologies like DTD, XML Schema and s.o.

But even with sufficient knowledge of DTD (or XML Schema) coding, doing a valid specialization requires knowledge of certain DITA principles and rules. Just designing a valid DTD will not necessarily mean that you have a valid DITA model. More on Specializations can be read here: http://docs.oasis-open.org/dita/v1.0/archspec/ditaspecialization.html

This article discusses some common problems and pitfalls people face when they do DITA 1.1 specializations . (more…)

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Problems and Solutions | No Comments »

DITAworks in beta-phase.

Sunday, March 1st, 2009 by Alexej Spas

I would like to announce that on 1st of March 2009, we are officially starting beta-testing phase for DITAworks product.

Beta-testing will be done by a group of interested parties from technical documentation service provider companies, end-customers and documentation professionals.

Main targets for beta-testing phase include:

  • Verifying the design and usability of product features with prospective real users, before the production release
  • Reducing inhibitors to new product (DITAworks) and technology (DITA) adoption
  • Finding any issues which were not previously identified by internal QA
  • Ensuring that the technical support operations will be prepared and functioning well to support the product upon its production release
  • Rolling out a competent and reliable software product which caters to the needs of the customers well

Main benefits for participating parties include:

  • Accessing a new and innovative product for evaluation
  • Providing inputs directly to Product and Development Managers for future enhancements and improvements
  • Possibility to influence priorities in functional development
  • Devising a technology/marketing strategy in advance with a foresight of new software in market, thereby staying a step ahead of competitors
  • Verifying the workability of product features in their environment
  • Attractive incentives including discounts or/and a “special treatment” clause for production releases
  • Reducing lead time in the roll out of the product in production environment

To enable beta-testing a special intermediate product version has been released: 0.9 beta. See detailed list of included functionality here.

This version will be available to parties participating in beta-testing phase only. Additionally support and feedback channels will be provided to beta-phase participants.

If you are interested in taking active part in beta-testing, please email to info[at]instinctools.com

Tags: ,
Posted in News | No Comments »




Copyright © 2008-2010 * instinctools GmbH