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The open source DITA Open Toolkit being developed at SourceForge.Net has been released as a major upgrade in Version 1.1. The DITA Open Toolkit application transforms XML-based DITA content (maps and topics) into deliverable formats including XHTML, Eclipse Help, HTML Help, and JavaHelp.
The toolkit "uses open source solution of ANT, XSLT, and Java to implement transformation functions from DITA content (XML-encoded data in maps and topics) into different deliverable formats. The whole process works like a pipeline. The pipeline input is DITA map, DITA XML files and property files. And the pipeline output is XHTML, Eclipse help, PDF, JavaHelp, etc. depending on what output user selects. The pipeline consists of various modules which performs different functions. The Toolkit implements a two-pass, map-driven architecture that resolves any conditional properties and content references on the first pass, then applies transformations to the normalized files on the second pass."
The highlight of the version 1.1 release is implementation of the OASIS DITA 1.0 standard for DITA DTDs and Schemas: the Toolkit now provides reference implementation support for OASIS DITA 1.0, approved as an OASIS Standard in April 2005. A DITA map might contain topicrefs that reference topics using either the older IBM doctypes (e.g., the "1.3.2" DTDs) or the OASIS doctypes; each will be processed according to its own DTD.
The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is "an XML-based, end-to-end architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering readable information as discrete, typed topics. It provides a technology for (1) managing readable information, (2) reusing information in many different combinations and deliverables, (3) creating online information systems such as User Assistance (help) or web resource, and (4) creating minimalist books for easier authoring and use."
The DITA Open Toolkit version 1.1 provides new functionality to fulfill additional requirements, offers several feature enhancements, and fix bugs reported since the version 1.0.2 release. Providing a reference implementation for the DITA 1.0 Standard through its core transforms is the single most important feature.
Release 1.1 also contains a new Eclipse transformation that produces as output a version of DITA XML that can be dynamically rendered in the Eclipse Help System. In previous Toolkit releases, one could transform DITA files to HTML format before building them into Eclipse help output. With the new Eclipse Content Provider included in V1.1, you do not need to transform DITA files to HTML: DITA files are preprocessed by a plugin and are dynamically transformed at runtime. The developer team plans to contributed the DITA Eclipse Content Provider to the Eclipse community.
Version 1.1 of the DITA Open Toolkit also provides new support for the XML catalog. An OASIS Committee Specification for XML Catalogs Version 1.1 was approved on July 22, 2005, and is working its way through the standardization process. An XML Catalog provides an interoperable way to "map the information in an XML external identifier into a URI reference for the desired resource." The current OASIS Committee Specification defines an entity catalog that handles two simple cases: (1) Mapping an external entity's public identifier and/or system identifier to a URI reference; (2) Mapping the URI reference of a resource (a namespace name, stylesheet, image, etc.) to another URI reference. Several schema language descriptions of XML Catalogs are documented in non-normative appendices of the CS (W3C XML Schema; RELAX NG Grammar; XML DTD).
The DITA Open Toolkit Version 1.1 also globalization enhancements, now supporting over twenty (20) popular languages within the content of DITA files. V1.1 provides a translation function for DITA keywords to over twenty languages. Currently this globalization support applies fully to Eclipse Help and XHTML transformations, and applies partially to other transformations.
Mapref functionality is another added features in the DITA Toolkit V1.1. Mapref "refers to a special usage of the topicref element as a reference to another DITA Map (ditamap) file. This allows one to manage the overall DITA Map more easily. For example, a large ditamap file can be broken down into several ditamap files, making it easier for the user to manage the overall logical structure; the mechanism also increases the reusability of the referenced ditamap files."
The DITA Open Toolkit Version 1.1 supports a transformation to troff, suitable for generation of technical documentation in various layouts/formats, including UNIX man pages.
The Toolkit is distributed as open source software under the Common Public License Version 1.0. Under this license, the Contributor "grants Recipient a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free copyright license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, distribute and sublicense the Contribution of such Contributor, if any, and such derivative works, in source code and object code form."
