Ditabook and ditafile organization

[Guest]

Other than the xref issue discussed in another thread, the map to ditabook functions not badly. Except, as also mentioned in yet another thread, all the fm-ditabook and fm-ditafile elements being red, so invalid, which doesn't really seem to inhibit book making.

However, my book map has, as chapters, other ditamaps. The top chapter topic comes in and is formatted properly by my edd/template. Sub-topicrefs, those within the chapter topicref, however, come in wrapped in their own fm-ditafile element, at the same level as the parent topic, and end up promoted. That is, whereas I'd intended them to be Heading2 entries, they are shown as Heading1.

Currently, I'm handling this my hand rearranging those contained fm-ditafile elements to fall under the parent topic. If I do that, I can also unwrap them, since the wrapper element now does nothing.

To those with more experience, is that a normal way of working?

I've not tried this, but it occurs to me that I might be able to edit the edd/topic files to accommodate fm-ditafile, to recognize it as a context to consider in deciding what style to apply. Would this be a better way to go? Can I even do it, given that the application regards these elements as invalid?

This whole area could use considerably more documentation than I'm seeing.

Presumably, the Leximation solution makes it all good, but I'm not looking forward to asking for even another $185 from my company atm.

Thanks
Bruce

[_Scott_Prentice_]

Hi Bruce...

I'm not sure I'm totally following your exact problem here, but keep in mind that the nesting of maps is intended to be transparent to the output. You can think of it as if you took the contents of the submap and pasted it in over the topicref in the main map that references that submap. It won't add any hierarchy to the resulting FM book. You need to use actual topics to create the hierarchy. (You may already know all of that and that may not be the problem you're running into.)

The FM8 DITA map to book process does work reasonably well, but it does have some limitations and problems. Any structural problems that you run into can probably be fixed by tweaking the import XSLT and the Book EDD.

DITA-FMx has fixed many of the problems, and if you're not ready (or able) to spend the extra money (probably far less than the time you'll spend trying to fix things though 🙂 .. you could download the DITA-FMx trial and compare the XSLT and Book EDD with those in FM8 and see if you can borrow the bits to make it work the way you want.

If you do need to make some tweaks to the structure applications, be sure to clone the default apps to make your own, so you can always roll back to the working versions *when* you break something (we all do).

Cheers,

...scott

Scott Prentice
Leximation, Inc.
www.leximation.com

[Guest]

Thanks, Scott. I'll look at the Lex stuff today or tomorrow. (Alas, my company has a history of not understanding the kind of higher math you suggest. 😉 But I will make the appeal if I decide to go that way.)

I think I correctly understand the relations of ditamaps and hierarchy, but could always be mistaken in my beliefs. I did, however, just test my understanding against how dita-ot generates html from the same ditamap, and the hierarchy produced is as I expected. So, I expect it's an issue with FM's ditabook generator. So far so good.

A little more graphic detail, for the record. The top ditamap has:

map
..topicref
....[fm-topicreflabel]Collections.ditamap

collection.ditamap has:

map
..topicref
....[fm-topicreflabel]Collections.xml
....topicref
......[fm-topicreflabel]CollectionClass.xml
....topicref
......[fm-topicreflabel]CollectionCreate.xml
etc.

HTML output is as expected, with the topic from Collections.xml as H1, and the topics from CollectionClass.xml and CollectionCreate.xml as H2.

The structure in the ditafile becomes:

[fm-ditafile] href=Collections.ditamap
..[fm-ditafile] href=Collections.xml
....[topic] Collections
....[fm-ditafile] href=CollectionClasses.xml
......[topic] Collection Classes
....[fm-ditafile] CollectionCreate.xml
......[topic] Creating a Class
etc.

The structure appears ok, and one might think that the heading levels would be appropriate. But, the top level headings of all three files are being formatted as the equivalent of H1.

I see two possibilities.

One is that the second and third fm-ditafile elements should *not* be at the same level as the topic, but nested under it. If that's true, then FM is at fault, and editing of the appropriate xslt file is necessary (or, continue with my current hand-edit process).

The other is that this structure is correct, and I really should accommodate it by editing the edd to treat the fm-ditafile elements as contexts for applying styles. (Assuming the illegitimate (red) elements are accepted at all as contexts, which I've not tried.)

I could go either way. My real issue is that I don't have enough information on how Adobe intends these fm-ditafile elements to function in order to determine the better course. There's something wrong somewhere in what Adobe provides, but I don't know if this particular effect is their error or mine.

Bruce

[_Scott_Prentice_]

Based on your description, it sounds like a bug in the FM8-DITA implementation. I'd try DITA-FMx and see if it does things better. Note that we also offer a free plugin called IniSwitcher that makes it easy to switch between FM8-DITA and DITA-FMx.

At the very least, if you compare the EDD and XSLT between the two plugins, you may see how to fix the FM8 implementation.

Best of luck!

...scott

[Guest]

Got to it. Thanks, Scott. Very instructive. And, rooted out one cockpit error as well. The fm-subditamap element in leximation is also a nice fix.
- Bruce

[_systecgmbhnuremberg_]

Hello Mr. Boyer,

the "fm-ditabook" and "fm-ditafile" (a.s.o) are accessory elements that are only known in the book-application, but not in the topic application.

Could it be that you haven´t configured the map>book process to use the book application? If so, this is very propable the cause of the invalid accessory elements.

Hope this helps.
With kind regards.
[SYSTEC - the document processing company.]
[- excessive signature removed -]

[Guest]

This seemed a sensible suggestion, so I gave it a look. However, the book app is already set in dita options, and switching to the book app using Set Structured Application doesn't improve things. Further, things seemed to work ok with FMx, so I don't know what else I might be missing.

I might hope that this was corrected in FM9. Does anyone know? When I get back to a more reasonable computer and inet connection next week, I'll give the demo a try.

Thanks
Bruce

[_Scott_Prentice_]

Hi Bruce...

The book build process is completely different in FM9. Your arrangement of using sub-maps as chapters is exactly the way FM9 wants you to work, so you should be in good shape there. I think that the heading hierarchy should work better for you although you will probably need to develop a custom Book template to get it tow work as you want. In default FM9 there is no more concept of a Book app .. it uses the Topic app for book builds.

Give it a whirl.

BTW .. DITA-FMx will be available for FM9 in the near future. :)

Cheers,

...scott

[Guest]

Cool. Now to see if I can shake a few hundred $$ out of my co. :(

Thanks
Bruce