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The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information.
The name of the architecture can be explained as follows:
- Darwin: it uses the principles of specialization and inheritance;
- Information Typing: it capitalizes on the semantics of topics (concept, task, reference) and of content (messages, typed phrases, semantic tables);
- Architecture: it provides vertical headroom (new applications) and edgewise extension (specialization into new types) for information.
DITA divides content into small, self-contained topics that can be reused in different deliverables. The extensibility of DITA permits organizations to define specific information structures and still use standard tools to work with them. The ability to define company-specific and even group-specific information architectures enables DITA to support content reuse and reduce information redundancy.
DITA specifies a number of topic types, such as Task, Concept and Reference. Within DITA, a Task topic is intended for a procedure describing how to accomplish a task. It lists a series of steps that users follow to produce a specified outcome. Concept information is more objective, containing definitions, rules, and guidelines. A Reference topic is for topics that describe command syntax, programming instructions, other reference material; it usually contains detailed, factual material.
The DITA architecture and a related DTD and a W3C-Schema was originally developed by IBM. DITA is now an OASIS standard.
Features of DITA
- The topic as an organizing principle.
- Reuse of whole topics, as well as reuse of partial topics through the use of content references.
- Support for adding new elements, through specialization of base DITA elements. Through specialization, DITA can accommodate new topic types and element types as needed for specific industries or companies.
- Property-based processing:
- Extensive metadata to make topics easier to find.
- Universal attributes for things like audience and platform to enable filtering and other processing of information.
- Use of element names and structures similar to popular languages such as HTML and XHTML.
Standards-Based Publishing
DITA is conceived as an end-to-end architecture. In addition to indicating what elements, attributes, and rules are part of the DITA language, the DITA specification includes rules for publishing DITA content in print, HTML, online Help, and other formats. For example, the DITA specification indicates that if the conref attribute of element A contains a path to element B, the contents of element B will be displayed in the location of element A. DITA-compliant publishing solutions, known as DITA processors, must handle the conref attribute according to the specified behaviour. Rules also exist for processing other rich features such as conditional text, index markers, and topic-to-topic links.
When DITA was released as a public XML standard, IBM also contributed the first DITA-compliant processor, the DITA Open Toolkit. The Toolkit transforms DITA content into output formats such as PDF or HTML. The Toolkit can be extended to handle arbitrary specializations and arbitrary output formats. Out of the box it handles all standardized DITA specializations and many output formats including:
- PDF, through XSL-FO
- XHTML
- Microsoft Compressed HTML Help
- Eclipse Help
- Java Help
- Oracle Help
- Rich Text Format
The Toolkit continues to be the foundation of most, if not all, publishing of DITA content. Many DITA users use it directly, and some DITA authoring tools and content management tools now integrate parts of the Toolkit into their own publishing workflows.
The DITA Open Toolkit is an active open-source project, with contributions from several companies.
See also
References
- DITA XML.org Focus Area
- DITA Architectural Specification
- DITA Language Specification
- OASIS DITA Consortium
Further reading
External links
- DITA XML.org Focus Area
- DITA World — Comprehensive list of DITA resources: articles, vendors, user groups and more
- IBM's Introduction to DITA
- DITA Open Toolkit Project Home
"Darwin Information Typing Architecture"