how to manage the change log

[FieryPantone]

Still investigating the move to structure, starting off with tools other than FM so I can learn one thing at a time, and I've run into a question: my current FM (unstructured) books often have an incremental change log in the form of a table, as well as change highlighting for the latest release. I've managed to work out how to use conditions to drive change bars and formatting; I've discovered critdates, metadata, prodinfo, vrm and so on: but I can't immediately spot a DITA element for the familiar change-log.

Any suggestions? of course, I could just bung in a table and populate it with the information … but I'm hoping there'll be some more focused approach!

[Russ Ward]

FIery,

I don't know that there is a DITA element for this specific purpose. I think you might have to specialize. But one thing worth mentioning... you say "move to structure" and then later "DITA" as if the two are the same thing. They are not. DITA is just one option for structured authoring. If you find that DITA does not offer the markup you need, you can always make your own structure definition. It doesn't happen instantly, but it might be worth the effort. DITA is complicated and I believe that there needs to be a compelling reason to choose it.

Russ

[FieryPantone]

I agree there are more structure options than DITA, but DITA's what I feel most comfortable with … especially after early exposure to its IBM ancestors :-} I'll have to carry on thinking about the change-log, though.

[Mike-Hardy]

The revhistory element in DocBook might provide some inspiration.