Lately I’ve found myself doing more discussion of DITA, so it is time for another in the 5-minute-series. If you are new to XML it might be helpful to start with the previous two posts on XML and Schemas before continuing.

In the previous posts I discussed how XML isn’t a specific language, but is instead a set of rules governing the syntax of languages that may be invented. The invention of XML came out of a need to be able to describe content. Word processors and desktop publishers mostly focused on the formatting of content. When you create new content in these tools you do so as a part of the layout and formatting process. With XML, you instead try to describe what the content you are entering is, for example a paragraph, a chapter, a book, an article, a caption or whatever. 

XML provides a common syntax for creating languages to describe your content, but does not specify the actual grammar. As described in detail in the previous post in this series, XML Schemas or DTDs are used to specify the exact labels and grammar of a particular type of XML.

While you can invent your own labels and grammar based upon XML, doing so means that unless others adopt your format, you will have to customize editing tools to understand your particular vocabulary.

Instead of always creating a vocabulary from scratch, many users of XML instead adopt a shared standard. Standards exist to represent most any data you can think of, whether it be recipes, musical scores, articles, chapters, books or anything else. These standards can be shared, and tools can be created to create, edit, manage and format based on the standard. If a community exists around my particular flavor of XML, we can share tools and techniques that can mean reduced effort required to deploy content solutions.

DITA, an acronym for Darwin Information Typing Architecture, is an XML language that is extensible and can be adapted to a range of uses. DITA is based on the concept of topics. A topic is a unit of information that typically can be read in isolation or inserted into a larger document. In order to stream together topics, DITA uses the concept of a map file. A map file is simply an XML file that acts as a sort of table of contents stringing together a series of topic files.

The term “topic” is generic. DITA allows, however, the generic topic to be adapted to represent more specific structures. The basic DITA specification includes Concept, Task and Reference. These content units are more specific versions of the generic topic. They can be handled with special rules if you want. But if you don’t haven special rules, they can be also treated more generically as topics.

Benefits of a common vocabulary 

Having a common vocabulary means that users of the vocabulary can share information with each other and share tools and code used to handle the content. For example, if you use a DITA-based format, there are a number of editing tools that can be used to edit your content. Tools used to process the content can also be shared. For example, DITA includes the code and stylesheets needed to create PDF, HTML and other output formats, and the community is constantly evolving. New formats may appear and other DITA-based solutions can take advantage of the tools to support the new format without needing to modify their existing processes.

For DITA, the community provides the DITA Open Toolkit. This toolkit includes a variety of transformations that can take DITA content and render it in HTML, PDF, and other formats. It also provides an extensible architecture. If you have a customized version of DITA, you can create a plug-in that can enable DITA solutions to handle the specific requirements of your customizations. Toolkit plugins can be used to configure editing tools, extend the rules of DITA, or modify the included stylesheets used to render content so that they can account for a most specific vocabulary adapted from the base DITA stylesheets. Any DITA tool can process content even if it is based on proprietary extensions because all of those proprietary extensions are mapped to more generic DITA structures. So if I use a DITA-based vocabulary that defines a “chapter,” systems that do no understand “chapter” can always treat the encoded content as a more generic “topic.” 

So while XML is a set of rules for creating a particular language to encode your content, DITA is a particular language that was designed to be able to be extended to more specific uses that still share a common grammar. DITA provides a base set of stylesheets for rendering your content in a variety of specific formats. Many XML tools exist to process any DITA-based document, and most provide extension points so that you can adapt the tool to a more specific DITA-based language without having to start from scratch. 

Tools to edit DITA documents can edit any vocabulary derived from DITA without modification, and can be extended to support more specific vocabulary structures if desired. At RSI Content Solutions we have content management systems with support for DITA that provides a range of features that make it much quicker to deploy a DITA solution without starting from scratch. Our solutions allow editing, transformation, as well as the ability to reuse content in different contexts if needed. So while XML is a set of rules governing the structure of an infinite variety of languages, DITA is a topic-based XML language used for representing content. Although you can use DITA without any modifications, many organizations wish to encode content in less generic manner. DITA has the advantage of allowing more specific content structures to be derived from the existing generic structures if needed. This means that if you need to create an XML vocabulary you aren’t starting from scratch and you are providing a fallback mechanism for systems not aware of the specifics of your particular vocabulary.

Back in September, DocZone DITA exhibited at the CIDM Best Practices Showcase in Savannah, Georgia. We spoke with many of you about your DITA Open Toolkit wants and needs, we spoke with many of you about how you're personally using these capabilities.

Because there is a such a growing need for DITA Open Toolkit plugins in the technical publishing environment, we have scheduled a webinar to inform you on the capabilities that DocZone has to offer.

Attend our DocZone DITA webinar and witness:

• How DocZone DITA incorporates DITA OTK plugins 
• XTM capabilities that translate content in more than 250 languages 
• How simple it is for DocZone to publish to multiple formats with the click of a button 
• ...and so much more 

We're excited to introduce DocZone DITA's OTK plugin and other capabilities to you. Register for the webinar on October 24 webinar today!

I had the opportunity to attend the Outsell Signature Event last week that brings together top executives from the information industry.  As always, everything that Outsell does is top notch and so in an inviting setting and surrounded by movers and shakers in the industry a number of key topics were discussed, debated, and argued.  The event traditionally focuses on all aspects of the information industry and provides an executive level view of the economy, business models, technology adoption, current stress points, and business and technology transformation.

Some random points from the sessions:

• The economy is going to continue to grow at a relatively slow pace for the next few years and it will be worse if the US government does not address the debt ceiling quickly.
• Many information providers are being disrupted by the shift to electronic products.  Those who have adopted a more progressive business model are able to weather the storm a bit easier.  Those who are stuck in their old ways are beginning to feel the significant decline of print revenue.
• Design of electronic products have evolved tremendously with users expecting a clean, functional design.  No longer is it acceptable to have great content and a poor interface.
• Software vendors are also feeling the disruptions with changing software licensing models.  The need to have an a la carte license model is a requirement, not an option.
• Transformation is not an option anymore.  Too many variables are changing at breakneck speed and an organization needs to be ready to change or face the inevitable decline.
• Wearable technology is really cool and will take some time to be adapted but don't be surprised if you are wearing a small device (e.g., watch, pin, earring) within the next decade that is attached to the internet in some way.

While RSuite CMS was not front and center at this conference as an exhibitor, it was interesting to speak with publishers who continue to be challenged by managing a large (dare I say big data) set of disparate content.  

Publishers realize that content management software is an absolute necessity to transforming their organization, and I believe executive management understands the larger problem is with their processes and culture.  The culture (i.e., people) side of transformation is probably the most challenging and will continue to require a significant investment of time and money to address. The process side of transformation is a bit easier because everyone wants to make their jobs easier and more efficient.  It is great to finally hear executives say that XML content management is no longer a "nice to have" but a necessity in business transformation to meet multi-channel publishing goals. Fortunately, RSuite CMS is positioned very well to help out publishers in their transformation.

I look forward to the meeting next year.

I recently read a post by CMS Critic's Holly Write which made me think. Today's content needs to be managed by more than just a straw man content management system. Content comes in all shapes and sizes because no one works from just one program or machine. Whether its an Adobe InDesign file or a Word file, the CMS that your content lives in needs to be more robust than ever. It needs to handle authoring, editing, production, distribution, and of course storage.

Until now, this type of content management system was nearly unheard of. Aside from it being flat-out non-existent, if it did exist, it would be clunky, ugly, and no one who needed to work in it would be able do so. It would simply be too hard for someone without a technical background to operate. Holly Write from CMS Critic stated, "One of the biggest reasons that companies invest in content management systems is to allow their less technical users to manage content." When a publisher explores the possibility of purchasing a content management system, among other things, they look for:

• ease of use
• minimal learning curve
• a beautiful user interface

Interested in seeing how RSuite CMS manages content for publishers? Schedule a demo now.

RSuite CMS, a content management system used by some of the most globally recognized publishers, will be exhibiting at the American Collective Stand S31 in Hall 8.0 during the Frankfurt Book Fair. Click here or below to make an appointment between Wednesday, 9 October and Friday, 11 October to speak with an RSuite specialist.

• Reduce product development and time to market by over 50%
• Achieve total control of your content using the newly released RSuite 4
• Realize your multi-channel publishing goals!

            ...and so much more

Time slots are almost completely filled. Schedule your meeting today to lock down your time with an RSuite CMS specialist.

Barry Bealer, CEO/Co-founder of RSI Content Solutions, makers of RSuite CMS, will moderate the STM panel “Lessons For Trade Publishers From STM Publishers” at NAPCO’s Business Conference and Expo on Tuesday, September 24 at 11:05 AM EDT. This major event brings publishers dozens of sessions specifically geared toward book and magazine publishing executives.

This session will engage a panel of STM publishing executives to discuss the benefits of XML-early workflows, cultural changes necessary to adopt new technology, and barriers to change. Trade publishers will gain insight from decades of XML experience from the STM publishing community. Attendees will learn the main areas all publishers need to address to take full advantage of digital opportunities, how to determine where best to implement XML into your workflow, and gain ideas for successfully unifying content management and digital asset management.

RSuite CMS is a content management system for publishers to create, manage, transform, and deliver a digital future. Once again, we are excited to be attending the annual Frankfurt Book Fair at Stand 8.0 S31 in the USA Pavillion.

If you are responsible for managing content and digital assets, publishing workflows and transformations, or editorial and production processes, we would love to chat with you about our solution and some of our recent customer success stories.

Contact us to schedule an appointment.

RSuite CMS, a content management system for publishers, is used by The Institution of Engineering and Technology to manage journal articles, issues, images, and corresponding metadata for its journal production process. The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is a world leading professional organization sharing and advancing knowledge to promote science, engineering, and technology across the world. Based in the UK, The IET publishes 100+ new titles every year: a rich mix of books, journals and magazines with a back catalogue of more than 500 publications.

RSI is proud to announce the relaunch of www.rsuitecms.com, a website which provides details on our three new licensing models.

These three licensing models, called "editions", will make RSuite available to publishers of any size, as well as other industries. The new editions are: RSuite CMS Team Edition (TE), RSuite CMS Standard Edition (SE), and RSuite CMS Enterprise Edition (EE). 

Find out which edition is right for you:

RSuite CMS Team Edition (TE)

RSuite TE is a hosted CMS solution ideal for the needs of small and mid-sized publishers or organizations who are stepping into content management for the first time. We have packaged the popular features and function of our industry-leading solution and made it easily accessible and affordable.

RSuite CMS Standard Edition (SE)

RSuite SE is the perfect solution for mid-size publishers and media companies that demand the full feature-set of an enterprise solution without the price tag. RSuite SE manages the full lifecycle of content from creation to packaging and distribution. RSuite SE is a scalable CMS that can serve as a central repository for all of your content, provide significant automation through workflow, and package and distribute content to targeted licensing partners or other platforms.

RSuite CMS Enterprise Edition (EE)

RSuite EE is a full featured CMS that scales to terabytes of content and thousands of users. If you are looking for an industrial strength CMS to leverage your investment in MarkLogic, RSuite EE is the CMS you need. Why build on top of MarkLogic when you can install and be running in hours with RSuite EE? Trusted by some of the world’s most recognized global publishers, RSuite EE provides the framework to run your entire publishing operation.

Interested in seeing a demo? Click the demo request button under the product that best describes your company's needs. We'd love to hear from you!

I was recently reading Dorothy Hoskins' provocative LinkedIn thread on Adobe's embrace of the magazine market at the expense of the educational publishing market and it made me think. So, the options covered in this thread are to work with Adobe by adding requests to their product wish list or have IDPF front an industry request to support merging standards, assuming EDUPUB rather than a better version of ePub is a standard worth sponsoring.

The real question is whether InDesign provides the capability of producing derivative structures that support different standards. It's not looking that way, not now. Maybe production editorial folks in ed publishing houses will embrace other options, like batch pagination systems as an alternative to InDesign. Or use off-shore vendors to force feed *ML through a few manual conversion steps to make ePub files. This push and pull between the making systems like InDesign and the market demands for multiple file formats from a single source puts production and editorial managers in a challenging position.

What's missing from this thread is how Component Content Management Systems (CCMS) fit in, where in the workflow they add value. As a CMS software vendor for some ten years, we at RSI, makers of RSuite CMS, see the movement from IT-based CMS systems, XML repositories with some workflow added, to robust publishing systems supporting a variety of editorial and production workflows.

Enter DITA For Publishers, a standard which RSuite supports which provides the extensibility publishers do and will need to connect editorial, production and the market demands for multiple file formats from a single-source. Click here for our DITA For Publishers White Paper.