I'm a senior technical writer with good general knowledge of DITA, but I'm just getting started with my first real hands-on implementation. Can I say: This webinar was brilliant! It helped with learning the tool, giving me ideas about how I can do content management, subject matter expert (SME) reviews, and so much more. I highly recommend this as a great place to start! Also: Now I know why oXygen is such an excellent product: Because Syncro Soft tech pubs team uses DITA and their own tools to develop their own documentation--and the Syncro Soft developers actually take the writers feedback and incorporate them into the product! (Ok, this point sounds like a no-brainer, but we all know this doesn't always happen). And they make their documentation--content, style guide, Schematron rules, etc.--available as a reference implementation for download. I can't tell you, as a "lone writer" just getting started, how thrilled I am to have all these resources. Thank you!
Donna, Thank you so much for your kind words. You are correct that all of our personnel use our own products and our developers are constantly striving to improve our existing products as well as introduce new products based on the feedback from real users, including our own documentation team. We appreciate your feedback and we're very happy to hear that the information presented in our webinar was beneficial for you in your process of getting started with a DITA implementation. Best Regards, Oxygen Team
You mean creating a single DITA topic with multiple reusable elements inside as opposed to creating a DITA topic for each reusable elements? It depends on whatever fits better with your workflow, the "DITA Reusable Components" side view we added in more recent versions should gather and propose reusable content from all reusable content files.
I wish you, as an author working for Oxygen, would take a good long critical look at your documentation from the reader's perspective. My gripe is that you have totally ignored information chunking principles, and as a result, wading through the quagmire of text surround a procedure makes it a nightmare to follow and by extension, to use your documents. Also, the wording is pretty horrible to get your head around, for instance: "Elements related to the glossary specialization are not defined as part of the glossary topic type, but are often used in conjunction with those elements" is a pretty small snippet but why oh why do I find I squint every time I read it? (I'll accept that I may be dumb as an ox).
Thanks for this video! I'm new to technical writing and am trying to get an overview of various tools, so this was helpful.
I'm a senior technical writer with good general knowledge of DITA, but I'm just getting started with my first real hands-on implementation. Can I say: This webinar was brilliant! It helped with learning the tool, giving me ideas about how I can do content management, subject matter expert (SME) reviews, and so much more. I highly recommend this as a great place to start!
Also: Now I know why oXygen is such an excellent product: Because Syncro Soft tech pubs team uses DITA and their own tools to develop their own documentation--and the Syncro Soft developers actually take the writers feedback and incorporate them into the product! (Ok, this point sounds like a no-brainer, but we all know this doesn't always happen). And they make their documentation--content, style guide, Schematron rules, etc.--available as a reference implementation for download. I can't tell you, as a "lone writer" just getting started, how thrilled I am to have all these resources. Thank you!
Donna,
Thank you so much for your kind words. You are correct that all of our personnel use our own products and our developers are constantly striving to improve our existing products as well as introduce new products based on the feedback from real users, including our own documentation team. We appreciate your feedback and we're very happy to hear that the information presented in our webinar was beneficial for you in your process of getting started with a DITA implementation.
Best Regards,
Oxygen Team
In 1:17:00 What are the benefits of reusables structured in large chunks instead of granular ones?
You mean creating a single DITA topic with multiple reusable elements inside as opposed to creating a DITA topic for each reusable elements? It depends on whatever fits better with your workflow, the "DITA Reusable Components" side view we added in more recent versions should gather and propose reusable content from all reusable content files.
I wish you, as an author working for Oxygen, would take a good long critical look at your documentation from the reader's perspective. My gripe is that you have totally ignored information chunking principles, and as a result, wading through the quagmire of text surround a procedure makes it a nightmare to follow and by extension, to use your documents. Also, the wording is pretty horrible to get your head around, for instance: "Elements related to the glossary specialization are not defined as part of the glossary topic type, but are often used in conjunction with those elements" is a pretty small snippet but why oh why do I find I squint every time I read it? (I'll accept that I may be dumb as an ox).
Whatever the shortcomings of OxygenXML doc, you must admit that, at 2641 pages, if nothing else it's an excellent example of minimalist documentation!