Can you suggest example websites or public docs that use DITA and xrefs?

[TWDaveWalker]

Specifically, ones that have cross-references to other topics and external sources.

We are embarking on the DITA-conversion adventure would like to avoid the pitfalls of the (what I hear can be a painful) transition for things like using cross-references.  Our current docs are littered with "For more info, see Blah on page 15-3" and "For more info, see www.blah.com"

Note: I don't need to see the .fm source docs yet, we are just evaluating the look and how links work at the display level.

Thx!

[ScottPrentice]

This website lists some publicly available content that was DITA-sourced ..

     http://www.ditamap.com/ditadocs.php

Cheers,

...scott

[Bernard Aschwanden]

There is also a model for linking that is used in DITA that differs from the "random" approach that a lot of content takes. To quote you:

"Our current docs are littered with [xrefs]"

In DITA you can, technically, put links all over the place, but there is a better overall approach to consider. One is to use <related-links> which only appear at the end of a topic. This is neat, but it is still internal to the file. The other approach is to use a reltable. This is inserted in a map and used at the time of publishing to put in links.

Imagine this in a world where FM is used: You create a book, but it's made up of many nested files. If a file is at the "highest" level then it's a chapter, but if you put a file link in one more level down, it's a Heading1, and another level down is a Heading2.

Now you end up with stuff like this:

The Entire World

      Europe

           Germany

           Italy

           England

           ...

     Asia

           Japan

           China

           ...

When you publish The Entire World you get two chapters, and then have many countries in them. However, no links (yet). Instead, you just have a bunch of content combined together and published. But now you add a set of rules that say "it would be great if Japan and England link to each other". When added and you publish you get two links. One from Japan to England, the other from England to Japan. They appear after you write about the two nations, and they are inserted in the published output, but NOT inside the file. So now you can use Japan or England in a totally different context, but not have to remove the links.

If you have ever used conditions to hide xrefs because some docs are reused, but the links make no sense in another context, then DITA and Frame become a very neat combination for you. There's more to it than that, but consider how/why your links exist before you decide to convert in bulk. In some cases it is very worthwhile to do a good review of content before structuring. Actually, that should likely read "in most cases" as links are often added, but seldom removed.

Hope that helps,

Bernard