Publishing DITA with MkDocs Material
Converting DITA content to Markdown and publishing the output with the Material theme for MkDocs.
DITA Bootstrap⁴ plug-in
The latest version of my Bootstrap plug-in for DITA Open Toolkit 3.3 generates HTML5 output with a Bootstrap 4 styling base.
Lightweight DITA Committee Note № 2
The OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) TC announced a new version of their Committee Note “Lightweight DITA: An Introduction”.
Customizing DITA output
At DITA Europe in Rotterdam, I spoke about producing custom output with DITA Open Toolkit and suggested it may no longer be quite as hard as you recall.
2023
Publishing DITA with MkDocs Material
Converting DITA content to Markdown and publishing the output with the Material theme for MkDocs.
2019
DITA Bootstrap⁴ plug-in
The latest version of my Bootstrap plug-in for DITA Open Toolkit 3.3 generates HTML5 output with a Bootstrap 4 styling base.
2018
Lightweight DITA Committee Note № 2
The OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) TC announced a new version of their Committee Note “Lightweight DITA: An Introduction”.
Customizing DITA output
At DITA Europe in Rotterdam, I spoke about producing custom output with DITA Open Toolkit and suggested it may no longer be quite as hard as you recall.
DITA-OT Plug-in Registry
DITA-OT 3.2 introduces a new plug-in registry that makes it easier to discover and install new plug-ins via a searchable list at dita-ot.org/plugins.
2017
DITA-OT³ Markdown Support
As of version 3.0, DITA Open Toolkit supports Markdown out-of-the-box along with the alternative authoring formats proposed for Lightweight DITA.
DITA Users September Meetup
Join the DITA Users Berlin meetup on September 27 to learn how HERE Technologies tests and validates DITA docs with open-source plugins for DITA Open Toolkit.
Teaching Information Architecture
This spring I’m teaching Information Architecture in the Master’s degree program in Content Strategy at FH Joanneum University of Applied Sciences in Graz.
2016
DITA Open Toolkit Docs Process
At DITA Europe this year, I’ll be speaking about how the DITA Open Toolkit project uses DITA features and open-source tools to build the toolkit documentation.
API docs in DITA and Markdown
I spoke in London at the Write The Docs mini-conference on Documenting APIs hosted by the UK’s Government Digital Service, the team behind the GOV.UK website.
DITA Users Berlin meetup
Join our first meetup to learn how Markdown can help you to simplify the authoring process and gather input from contributors who are less familiar with DITA.
2015
Roundtripping DITA–XLIFF Conversions
At the XLIFF Symposium in Berlin, I showed how to transform XML files from the Darwin Information Typing Architecture to a single XLIFF file and back.
Marking Down DITA
On the rise of Markdown as an alternative input method for DITA projects.
2014
Wire. Great conversations.
For the past year, I’ve been working with many of the original team behind Skype to launch a new messenger called Wire.
Contributing to the Toolkit via GitHub
Now that the DITA Open Toolkit is hosted on GitHub, it’s easier than ever to contribute changes to the DITA-OT source code or the documentation.
DITA-OT Documentation Repository
At DITA Europe in Munich, the DITA Open Toolkit contributors split the toolkit documentation into a dedicated repository to make it easier to contribute.
Using Icon Fonts in DITA Projects
This year at DITA Europe in Munich, I showed how to use scalable vector icons in DITA projects to ensure that output renders sharply at any resolution. ✨
Best Practices Newsletter Article — Automating DITA Builds
After DITA Europe 2013 in Munich, I was invited to expand my presentation on “Automating DITA Builds” to an article for the CIDM Best Practices Newsletter.
Automating DITA Builds (Seattle Edition)
After presenting at DITA Europe in Munich last year, I was invited to give the talk at this year’s Content Management Strategies/DITA North America in Seattle.
2013
Automating DITA Builds
At DITA Europe 2013 in Munich, I’ll be speaking on “Automating DITA Builds — Lightweight Continuous Integration for Documentation Projects”.
2011
Talk @ tekom: Social Versioning
At this year’s tekom spring conference, I’ll be speaking on the use of distributed version control systems for collaborative authoring of documentation.
2010
Accessible Documentation
Today I spoke on the relationship between technical documentation and accessibility for a W3C event at the University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam.
DITA-OT: Scaling Images in PDF Output
When generating PDF output via DITA Open Toolkit, users often stumble over image scaling issues. You can make images fit by setting dimensions and resolution.
Roundtripping Versions: Git to SVN — and Back Again
This post proposes a way to use a single folder on your computer as both a Git repository and a Subversion working copy.
2009
Snow Leopard Services: Set ZIP File Date
With Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard, you can create a system service to compress files or folders and set the ZIP file modification date to the date of the contents.
Think Twice Before Firing Editors
Last week the Toronto Star epitomized the recent decline of the newspaper industry by firing a hundred members of its pre-publishing and editorial divisions.
What Makes Good Information Design
Information is Beautiful — David McCandless ponders the nature of information design as the intersection of accuracy, relevance, usefulness, and structure.
PDF2: Removing Page Numbers from Cross References and Customizing Cover Pages
Dan Ochs has posted several nice tutorials on customizing the output produced by the DITA Open Toolkit PDF2 plugin.
What’s New in FrameMaker 9
If you’re looking for specifics on the new features, Adobe provides a detailed description in the FrameMaker 9 Reviewer’s Guide.
Adobe Technical Communication Suite 2
Adobe launched Technical Communication Suite Version 2, with Photoshop CS4 and Presenter 7 along with updated versions of the apps in the previous version.
DITA-OT 1.5 Milestone 10
Today Robert Anderson announced the availability of Milestone 10 of the DITA Open Toolkit version 1.5.
Customizing PDF2 Output
When building PDFs for different products with DITA Open Toolkit, you can store customizations in separate folders and reference them with customization.dir.
2008
DITA for WordPress
Claude Vedovini has released a set of plugins for the DITA Open Toolkit and WordPress that allow you to publish DITA content to a WordPress site.
Apple Xserve Field Guide
Apple has released the Xserve Field Guide, a web app for service technicians that need quick access to server maintenance information during on-site repairs.
Building Apple Help with OmniOutliner
William Van Hecke, Omni Group’s User Experience Lead has released Helpify, a Python script that turns OmniOutliner files into Apple Help books.
VMware Fusion 2.0 and CVSNT
VMware released its Mac virtualization product with an extremely annoying incompatibility — it won’t work properly with Windows systems running CVSNT.
Moving (renaming) Files in CVS
Once of the main complaints about the CVS version control system is that it’s difficult to move or rename files as your project structure changes.
iChm Adds Index Search
Keeping up the pace of nearly weekly releases, iChm Version 1.3 now allows you to search the index.
iChm Adds Index Support
Shortly after the release of iChm 1.1.1, Robin Lu has responded to popular demand and updated his CHM Reader for Mac OS X with support for indexes.
iChm — Cocoa CHM Reader for Mac OS X
Robin Lu has released iChm, a CHM reader for Mac with Webkit rendering, tabbed interface and a bookmark system so you can save links to favorite topics.
RenderX XEP Setup in oXygen
Recently, a client asked how to set up the RenderX XSL FO processor to transform DITA maps to PDF with oXygen XML Editor on Mac OS X.
Upgrading WordPress via Subversion
David Peralty has a nice tutorial on using Subversion to keep WordPress current by checking out the latest code directly from the Automattic repository.
Cornerstone: New Mac Subversion Client
Zürich-based indy developer Zennaware has released Cornerstone, the latest attempt to make the Subversion experience more Mac-like.
Versions Emerge(s) From the Vapors
A year after the initial hype, Mac Subversion client Versions celebrates the anniversary by actually releasing a beta app.
Clever Title Case Perl Script
John Gruber has released a script that transforms selected text into title case based on guidelines from the New York Times Manual of Style.
FrameMaker 8.0.3 Patch Available
The FrameMaker 8.0.3 patch release addresses a long list of bugs and workflow issues, including the proper resolution of DITA content references.
oXygen 9.2 Improves DITA Support
oXygen XML Editor 9.2 includes a new XML Author mode and DITA Maps Manager with a streamlined interface for content authoring and common map editing tasks.
Adobe RoboHelp Packager for AIR
A new Adobe Labs download allows you to roll a RoboHelp project into a standalone app that runs on the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) platform.
Spaces in HTML Help Project Paths
Like so many other applications, Microsoft’s HTML Help Workshop often chokes on project files whose paths contain spaces.
Using Mac VPN Clients with Virtual Machines
You can share your VPN connection between the host Mac and the guest PC by setting the network adaptor to share the host’s Internet connection via NAT.
FrameMaker 8.0.2 Update Available
Mahesh Gupta, Adobe’s FrameMaker Product Manager announced the availability of the Version 8.0.2 update in a post on the Technical Communication blog.
Sharing DITA-OT in OS X & Boot Camp
How to use a single installation of the DITA Open Toolkit on your Windows partition to generate output from either operating system environment.
2007
DITA-OT 1.4.1 Released
DITA Open Toolkit 1.4.1 includes bugfixes and minor enhancements to provide greater control over the output directory and improve error reporting.
SnagIt for Free!
TechSmith is offering version 7.2 of their Windows screenshot tool SnagIt for free to attract users to the latest version (8.2).
tekom for Runaways
At the tekom conference this week, English presentations were featured prominently as the organization strives to build an international reputation for itself.
Aptana Studio 1.0 Released
The open source Web development environment formerly known as the Aptana IDE has been re-christened as “Aptana Studio” and released as Version 1.0.
CHM Viewers for Mac OS
A handful of open source & shareware apps provide Mac users access to Windows help files in the Compiled HTML Help (CHM) format.
Automator Workflow: Set ZIP File Date
When you compress a file or folder in the Finder via the Create Archive command, a ZIP file is created using the current date as modification date.
CTRL-clicking in VMware Fusion
If you Enable Mac OS keyboard shortcuts option in VMware Fusion, Mac keys are passed on to the VM, but you can still send the CTRL key if you need to.
Adobe’s New Technical Communication Suite
Today Adobe announced the release of the new Technical Communication Suite, a bundle that includes the following programs:
DITA-OT Plug-in for FrameMaker 8
The FrameMaker 8 Plug-in for DITA Open Toolkit is now available from Adobe.
Aptana Milestone 9 Released
A new version of Aptana updates PHP support with Code Assist on PHP functions and parameters, improved PHP syntax colorization, and a PHP outliner.
SCPlugin — Subversion Client for Mac
There’s now a Mac equivalent for TortoiseSVN: SCPlugin is a free, open-source utility that displays the status of your version-controlled files in the Finder.
CSS Redundancy Checker
Tom Armitage has built a CSS Redundancy Checker that scans a CSS file for selectors that are not used by any HTML files in a specified directory.
HumaneText.service
A new system-wide Mac OS X service converts Markdown to XHTML (and vice versa) with keyboard shortcuts.
DITA-FMx Plug-in for FrameMaker
DITA-FMx is a new Adobe FrameMaker plugin from Leximation and Silicon Publishing that extends DITA support and fixes bugs in the Application Pack for DITA.
DITA Open Toolkit 1.4
Version 1.4 of the DITA Open Toolkit is now available, including support for new DITA 1.1 elements such as bookmaps, index-see and index-see-also entries.
OASIS Approves DITA 1.1
The DITA Technical Committee at OASIS, the international open standards consortium, has announced the approval of DITA version 1.1 as an OASIS Standard.
BusinessWeek on Web Standards
It’s not often mainstream media carries a story like this: Jeffrey Zeldman: King of Web Standards.
Sarah O’Keefe on FrameMaker 8
Sarah O’Keefe of Scriptorium Publishing has published her first impressions of FrameMaker 8, including a charming take on the significance of the new icon.
Book Tip: Bit Literacy
If you’ve ever struggled with the volume of bits that require your attention every day, a recent book by Mark Hurst of Good Experience may help.
FrameMaker 8: No DITA-OT Support
The DITA application pack previously available from Adobe Labs for FrameMaker 7.2 has been rolled in to FrameMaker 8, but drops support for DITA Open Toolkit.
FrameMaker 8 Sports Tabbed UI
Installation Surprise #2: Another thing about FrameMaker 8 that Adobe hasn’t mentioned is immediately apparent after installation — tabs and a colored toolbar.
FrameMaker 8 Requires Activation
Installation Surprise #1: One of the new FrameMaker 8 “features” Adobe carefully neglects to mention is that the application now requires activation .
Adobe Announces FrameMaker 8
Adobe has announced that FrameMaker 8.0 will be available by the end of July.
CSS Framework YAML 3.0
“Yet Another Multicolumn Layout” (YAML) is an XHTML/CSS framework for creating CSS-based float layouts.
EasyEclipse 1.3
For those who find Eclipse a bit intimidating to install, configure and maintain (or just appreciate a simpler approach), there’s now an easier way.
FrameMaker 8 Prerelease Closed
Adobe is no longer accepting new participants for the Prerelease Testing Program, so FrameMaker 8 should be coming soon.
WebWorks TopicAlias Marker Changes
If you’re using custom markers to embed context information in FrameMaker source files, there are changes in the new WebWorks version you should be aware of.
New Aptana Build + iPhone Plugin
A new version of the Aptana IDE is available with a new colorization engine, Eclipse Monkey support and “tons of enhancements”.
Error opening CHMs on a network
Microsoft security “fix” 896358 prevents display of content in CHM files opened from a network. Workaround: Use UNC file paths in links or move your CHMs.
WebWorks AutoMap Scheduling Error Confirmed
Quadralay support has confirmed that the spurious ”Error communicating with Adobe FrameMaker” messages in the WebWorks AutoMap log are indeed a bug.
WebWorks — Error communicating with FrameMaker
These messages in the AutoMap log may have nothing to do with the connection between AutoMap and FrameMaker — the settings in the job schedule may be corrupt.
Versions: New Mac OS X Subversion client
The interface artists at Sofa are working on a new Mac OS X Subversion client called Versions, which is due out for public beta release “any moment.”
Tiling Editors in Eclipse
While test-driving Aptana recently, I found the absence of a Tile command for editor tabs absolutely vexing!
FrameMaker 8 Prerelease Beta 2
Writing in the Adobe Technical Communication blog, FrameMaker Product Manager Aseem Dokania announced that Adobe is looking for FrameMaker 8 beta testers.
TU Berlin to offer Graduate Program in Human-Centric Communication
This fall the Technische Universität Berlin debuts graduate studies in Human-Centric Communication that include master’s degrees and a PhD program.
Aptana — The Web IDE
Aptana is a new open-source web development IDE for building, editing, previewing and debugging HTML, CSS and JavaScript websites.
Komodo Edit — Free editor for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows
Komodo is a free, multi-platform, multi-language editor for Web coding in HTML, CSS, & dynamic languages such as JavaScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, & Ajax.