Introduction to DITA	Sunday
Tony Self, HyperWrite Pty Ltd	1:00 - 4:30pm
DITA is an open source, XML-based architecture, standard and methodology for creating, defining, authoring and storing technical information, including user manuals, Help systems, support information and other forms of documentation and training materials. Larger organisations are increasingly preferring DITA to proprietary document storage formats, as DITA offers significant efficiency and usability advantages. But DITA is not limited to large organisations; it makes good sense for projects of any size to be moved to the DITA architecture. In this workshop, we will explain the concepts of DITA through practical examples, demonstrations, interactive discussions, and a group exercise. — YOU WILL LEARN — The business benefits of adopting DITA The principles of structured authoring and XML How to analyse a document's structure and topic types How to plan and model a document How you can save time and money through content re-use, repurposing, and conditions How to identify information types in legacy documents The logic and importance of semantic mark-up How to author DITA content New strategies for creating and publishing content within your organisation The skills needed within your team
Breaking Help Loose: From Frames and Tables to CSS	Monday
David Locke, WordSmith LLC	10:45am - 12:00pm
Most major authoring tools use some variant of HTML pages as output, like the familiar "tri-pane" display: navigation pane left, tab pane, (contents, index, search), and content on the right. Most tools use tables and frames to define these panes. The method suffers from disadvantages: time to load, frame errors. More serious: frames make it difficult to separate design from content, and they fail the standards test. CSS-based display, by contrast, offers advantages of speed, reliability, control, conformation with W3C standards and best practice--and separation of content and design. But getting from frames to CSS is not automatic. In this session we look at the methods several tools use to generate browser-based output. Then we'll move outputs from a frame-and-table-based display to CSS-grounded output. We'll do a step-by-step transition, integrate the results with CSH. Finally, we'll compare and evaluate the results for different browsers, content, and display requirements. — YOU WILL LEARN — Where you can control and customize Contrast/comparison of frames/tables with CSS How to set up the basics for a CSS-based display How to generate a transition to CSS-based display
Real-World XML Design and Development	Monday
Joe Marini, Microsoft	1:15 - 2:45pm
Now that XML has become a mainstream, widely-used technology, Web designers and developers find themselves confronted with an ever-increasing number of techniques and technologies for working with it. This session covers an end-to-end example of designing an XML vocabulary, working with various ways of validating and displaying the information in a page, and storing the information on the back end.
Double Scoop Case Studies • Theme: "DITA and ISO Standards"	Monday
This time slot features two separate case studies by two different speakers with a common theme.	3:30 - 4:45pm
Creating Help with DITA Tony Self, HyperWrite Pty Ltd
DITA features a topic-based architecture, just like a Help system. It also features the ditamap, a file not unlike a Help table of contents. DITA was designed for producing technical documents including Help. However, it is not a Help format; it's a storage format. A DITA document must be "transformed" into a Help format (such as HTML Help or Eclipse Help). Using the standard tools and transformers, it is not straightforward to incorporate context hooks, popups and layering in the output. So is DITA seriously appropriate for Help authoring? In this forum, members of the DITA Technical Committee and the DITA Help Subcommittee will explain the current status of DITA in a User Assistance development workflow. The Best Practices document developed by the Subcommittee will be discussed, and further ideas and suggestions will be canvassed. The forum will discuss: Where DITA fits into the Help picture What developments are underway to make it much more attractive as a Help authoring platform How it will always be different from "traditional" Help platforms Whether it might be suitable for a Help delivery format What additional facilities would improve DITA's attractiveness for Help development How DITA might fit in an embedded UA project The format will be an open forum, giving you the opportunity to ask questions, share your thoughts and make suggestions to the committee members involved.
An ISO/IEC Standard for User Assistance Witold Suryn, École de technologie superieure
The session will discuss software user assistance normative support offered in standards developed by ISO/IEC JTC1 Subcommittee 7 - System and software engineering. Starting with early efforts for standardization of management of software documentation (ISO 9294) and finishing with the latest documents being still in development phase (ISO/IEC 26511, 26512 and 26513), the session will introduce the audience to the overall trend as well as to some interesting details in user assistance standardizing works of SC7. A more detailed analysis of the latest SC7 user assistance standard - ISO/IEC 26514 - Requirements for developers and designers of user documentation, will serve as the illustration of SC7 efforts to support the user of a software product.
Introducing the DITA Open Toolkit	Tuesday
Pam Noreault, Sophos, Inc. and Tony Self, HyperWrite Pty Ltd	10:15 - 11:30am
Most DITA implementations start with the DITA Open Toolkit (OT) being used for publishing of DITA content. The Open Toolkit is developed and managed separately from the DITA standard itself, and provides an open-ended collection of tools and sample files. Although some DITA tools provide alternative publishing paths for DITA content, many DITA authoring tools rely on the OT. In this session, we will discover what the OT consists of, its relationship with DITA, and how to get up and running with it. The OT's command line publishing interface is quite daunting for many, so we will discuss how the free WinANT tool can provide a friendly, feature-rich interface. We will also explore how to work with the OT to provide customised output and corporate "badging" of output. A number of third party plug-ins extend the functionality of the OT further, and we will also explore some of these useful extensions. This will lead us to investigating options for context-sensitive Help. The presenters will also share their experience in using the OT in DITA projects. — YOU WILL LEARN — The relationship between DITA and the DITA Open Toolkit (OT) How to install the DITA OT How to publish content using the OT "out of the box" Demystifying the OT (within Windows) with WinANT How to customise HTML-based OT output How plug-ins can extend the functionality of the OT The options for context-sensitive HTML Help using the OT The process of customising page-layout (PDF and RTF) OT output How the DITA OT can be used in a project
Exploring Open Source and Alternative Tools	Wednesday
Mike McCallister, ProTek Writing Services, and Paul Mueller, UserAid	10:00 - 11:15am
We often only consider the top marquee names when we select tools. Open-source tools and Web services provide valuable alternatives to many of the tools we use today. This session explores how you can develop high-quality user assistance using open-source tools. We will review OpenOffice, LyX document processor, Scribus desktop publisher, lnkscape vector graphics, and The GIMP raster graphics. During this session, we will also explore various tools and Web services that provide consultants and small writing teams with the capabilities of many larger corporations. These solutions include version control, data backup, remote access, Webinar services, online collaboration, email aliases, email forwarding, and conference calling. — YOU WILL LEARN — Which open-source tools and Web services provide the capabilities you need Which tools and Web services provide cost-effective solutions for consultants and small teams
Creating "Auto-Magic" TOCs With XSLT	Wednesday
Dave Gash, HyperTrain dot Com	1:30 - 2:45pm
Single-page Tables of Contents (TOCs) are a powerful and useful navigation device for users, but are notoriously difficult to create and nearly impossible to maintain. But what if XML pages could create their own always-in-sync TOCs as they are transformed to HTML? Well, they can, and this session shows you how. We'll examine a simple XSLT technique called "modes" that lets us pre-process a page and construct a complete in-page TOC with links and targets that precisely match the page structure, and require no maintenance -- ever. It's all done on the fly with XSLT, and requires no complex scripting or special page modifications. Okay, it's not magic, but it's pretty darn close! — YOU WILL LEARN — How XML exposes the page structure to XSLT templates How XSLT makes multiple passes on the same input document How templates identify and modify page elements on the fly How to style the generated in-page TOC to suit your requirements