DITA达尔文信息类型化体系结构相关总结

Dennis Hu 2014年12月12日

说明：近期做了一个项目评估，接触到DITA相关的信息，这里给自己做一个简单的总结，也希望给其他将来可能会涉及到的朋友有点帮助。

DITA是做什么用的？

DITA(Darwin Information Typing Architecture)，即达尔文信息类型化体系架构：是OASIS组织制定的面向主题的文档类型定义规范，是针对结构化数字出版内容拆分与重组需求而设计的技术标准。DITA 在XML 基础上拓展了面向数字出版物描述的各项元素，覆盖数字出版物信息组织、编写、生成和交付等各个流程，并允许使用者根据不同领域技术出版物的需求进行扩展和定制。DITA的使用能够有效减少数字化出版过程中的信息冗余，为内容深加工和多渠道发布提供新的模式。

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering topic-oriented, information-typed content that can be reused and single-sourced in a variety of ways.

DITA is designed for creating new document types and describing new information domains based on existing types and domains. The process for creating new types and domains is called specialization. Specialization enables the creation of very specific, targeted document-type definitions that still can share the common output transformations and design rules developed for more general types and domains; this is similar to how classes in an object-oriented system can inherit the methods of ancestor classes.

DITA基本概念[摘自DITA_v1.2规范 2.1.1.3 Basic concepts]

DITA has been designed to satisfy requirements for information typing, semantic markup, modularity, reuse, interchange, and production of different deliverable forms from a single source. These topics provide an overview of the key DITA features and facilities that serve to satisfy these requirements.
DITA topics
In DITA, a topic is the basic unit of authoring and reuse. All DITA topics have the same basic structure: a title and, optionally, a body of content. Topics can be generic or more specialized; specialized topics represent more specific information types or semantic roles, for example, <concept>, <task>, <reference>, or <learningContent>. DITA topics should have .dita file extensions. 
DITA maps
DITA maps are documents that organize topics and other resources into structured collections of information. DITA maps specify hierarchy and the relationships among the topics; they also provide the context in which keys are defined and resolved. DITA maps should have .ditamap file extensions. 
Information typing
Information typing is the practice of identifying types of topics, such as concept, reference, and task, to clearly distinguish between different types of information.

DITA linking
DITA depends heavily on links. The purposes for which it provides links include defining the content and organization of publication structures (DITA maps), topic-to-topic navigation links and cross references, and reuse of content by reference. All DITA links use the same addressing facilities, either URI-based addresses or DITA-specific indirect addresses using keys and key references. 
DITA addressing
DITA provides a number of facilities for establishing relationships among DITA elements and between DITA elements and non-DITA resources. All DITA relationships use the same addressing facilities irrespective of the semantics of the relationship established. DITA addresses are either direct, URI-based addresses, or indirect key-based addresses.
Content reuse
The DITA @conref, @conkeyref, @conrefend, and related attributes provide a mechanism for reuse of content fragments within DITA topics or maps. 
Conditional processing
Attribute-based profiling, also known as conditional processing or applicability, is the use of classifying metadata that enables the filtering, flagging, searching, indexing, and other processing based on the association of an element with one or more values in a specific classification domain.
Configuration
A given DITA map or topic document is governed by a DITA document type that defines the set of structural modules (topic or map types), domain modules, and constraints modules that the map or topic can use.
Specialization
The specialization feature of DITA allows for the creation of new element types and attributes that are explicitly and formally derived from existing types. The resulting specialization allows for the blind interchange of all conforming DITA content and a minimum level of common processing for all DITA content. It also allows specialization-aware processors to add specialization-specific processing to existing base processing. 
Constraints
Constraint modules define additional constraints for corresponding vocabulary modules in order to restrict content models or attribute lists for specific element types, remove extension elements from an integrated domain module, or replace base element types with domain-provided extension element types.

2.1.1.5 Producing different deliverables from a single source也比较重要

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DITA2Go和DITA-OT的区别

Since DITA deliberately excludes presentational information, DITA authors use various tools for creating deliverable documents from their DITA content. The primary tool since DITA's inception has been the DITA Open Toolkit, the DITA-OT, which is free Open Source software contributed and largely maintained by IBM engineers. The DITA-OT is the "reference implementation" of tools for DITA presentation. It is written in XSLT and Java, and is available from SourceForge. 

Unlike the OT, DITA2Go does not assume that technical writers are XSLT and Java programmers. Many customizations that require creating a plugin for the DITA-OT can be made with simple settings in DITA2Go.

DITA相关图书

1. http://product.dangdang.com/22934732.html <DITA最佳实践指南——创作、编排和架构的技术路线>

2. http://product.dangdang.com/23405878.html <DITA数字出版技术>

参考资料：

1. http://mif2go.com/  Mif2Go converts FrameMaker files to HTML/XML, Help, and Word， DITA

2. http://dita2go.com/ DITA2Go converts DITA files to HTML/XML, Help, and Word

3. http://docs.oasis-open.org/dita/v1.2/os/spec/DITA1.2-spec.html  DITA 规范

4. http://www.adobe.com/cn/products/framemaker/try.html FrameMaker试用版下载

5. http://xmetal.com/ DITA/XML document editor

6. http://www.dita-ot.org/  A publishing tool intended to convert DITA content into various output formats