Easily perform DITA specializations in FrameMaker10!

Hello Framers,

Hope things are well. Today, I am going to be describing an exciting new feature in FramaMaker10 through which you can easily specialize the default DITA applications that are shipped with the product. Specialization allows you to define new kinds of information (either structure types or new domains), while reusing and building upon the existing design and code.

Here is how you do it. As always, remember to turn on your computer speakers when watching the video.

View video in a new browser window.

Workflow Steps

• Select DITA > DITA Specialization.

STEP RESULT: The DITA Specialization dialog displays.

• Browse to the read/write rules, EDD, and template files that are the basis you want to use to specialize.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Usually, these are the DITA files you ordinarily use with FrameMaker, located in your FrameMaker® directory \Structure\xml\DITA\app\DITA-Topic-FM\ (for DITA 1.1) and \Structure\xml\DITA 1.2\app\ (for DITA 1.2)

• Browse to the specialized DTD you want to use.
• Specify a location for the destination folder.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: The output is the location that files related to specialization, such as the rules, EDD, and template, are saved to.

• Provide file names for the new files that will be created.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: For example: new_rules.txt, new_edd.fm, new_template.fm.

• Check “Create New Structured Application” check box
• Click OK.

STEP RESULT: Files are created and you may be prompted to select an application that acts as the basis of your specialization.

• If required, select the DITA application that best suits your specialization and click Continue.

STEP RESULT: The Structured Application Designer displays with the new information already filled out.

• Specify a new name for the application in the application name field at the bottom and click Save and Close.

STEP RESULT: The structapps.fm file is updated with your new customization.

In summary, one can easily specialize their DITA applications and they need only the specialized DTD to perform the specialization and the rest of the files are shipped with the product as part of the DITA application pack.

Note: Addition made to the post (Jan 27, 2011)

Here is a more detailed how-to video on how to do DITA specialization in FrameMaker10

Hope you will find this feature helpful. Until the next blog post..

Sincerely,

Kapil Verma

Product Manager – FrameMaker and FrameMaker Server