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Subject:Re: DITA versus HAT From:Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com> To:Andrew Harvie <withanie -at- gmail -dot- com> Date:Tue, 5 Jun 2012 09:57:53 -0700
There are full-featured HATs that use DITA source. The best I've
played with is Oxygen. XMetal is also solid. Some of the tools on this
list do not support DITA source (e.g. Flare):
Structured FrameMaker can use DITA source but the documentation and
samples are inadequate. Reportedly DITA-FMx makes it easier.
Switching from whatever to DITA for theoretical reasons without a
cost-benefit analysis is pointy-haired.
On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 9:38 AM, Andrew Harvie <withanie -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
> G'day.
>
> I've spent the last few years using one of the standard
> help-authoring programs - one that doesn't include any DITA awareness.
> For the past few days, I've been researching DITA because my nerdy
> side just loves the idea of structure, metadata, organization...
>
> What I've found so far has left me feeling a bit bemused. It's as if
> I've stumbled through a time warp, back to the late 1980's. I have
> write Ant scripts in order to have anything other than the standard
> ugly output? Use the Microsoft Help Compiler after running the DITA
> transform in order to add index references and context sensitive
> mapping ID values to my CHM output? (I saw in a Scriptorium webcast
> that they're charging pretty good dollars for a improved DITA to PDF
> transform. That implies a high level of difficulty in order to
> customize the transformation scripts.)
>
> One thing I have noticed is that many of the DITA references that
> I've found on the web, date back to 2007 or before. Perhaps someone
> out there has created a help-authoring tool that allows you to work in
> a native DITA environment (not just import DITA files) _and_ provides
> all of the output-beautification features that one expects in a modern
> help authoring tool? Anyone?
>
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Create and publish documentation through multiple channels with Doc-To-Help. Choose your authoring formats and get any output you may need.
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