Author Max: Great DITA, Great Documentation

The DITA Project #1 in a series

katriel — Sun, 09 May 2010 10:16:24 +0000

Let’s say that you have a series of menu choices (such as Start > Programs > Accessories > Notepad). Each menu choice item should be in its own tag. The whole series should be in a <menucascade> element.

A common error in preparing content is jamming multiple UI controls in one tag, manually adding the connecting character (typically “>”).

Typical incorrect markup would be:

Start > Programs > Accessories > Notepad

The correct markup would be:

Start
Programs
Accessories
Notepad

When the content is published, the DITA OT adds connecting characters between the menu items to represent the menu cascade. So, the output would look similar to Start > Programs > Accessories > Notepad.

Announcing… The DITA Markup Project

katriel — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 12:41:17 +0000

Inspired by the movie Julie & Julia, here at Method M we have undertaken to emulate Julie Powell, who cooks all 524 recipes from Julia Child’s cookbook during a single year, a challenge she described on her popular blog.

So, we are off. In 52 weeks we will try and post 104 examples of Do’s and Don’ts for DITA Markup. No time to write more, we have to start preparing posts. If you have suggestions that you want us to post, just go ahead and send them to us (info at methodm dot com). We’ll be happy to credit you!

Stay tuned for the first postings soon.

One idea, one topic

katriel — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 15:58:17 +0000

DITA Thought for Today: one idea, one topic.

Just saw a procedure with mixed in in the prerequisites. An attempt to sneak in another procedure!

Tip for today: dividing your task topic into sections is usually a tip-off that your topic has more than one procedure.

Remember – one idea, one topic. (Kind of like, “one man, one vote”.)

new GoMDweb sites going live

katriel — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:51:29 +0000

GoMDweb.com continues to launch great new sites for dentists.

Check out the KJJ dental web site for a cool site with two languages.
For a new site coming on line just now, check out Dacula Dental Associates.

We are very excited about bringing the benefits of our content publishing and lifecycle skills to health care, and contributing to improved caregiver-patient communication (and better outcomes!).

Content on doctor’s web sites

katriel — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 04:41:31 +0000

\”Awhile back, you decided your practice needed to have a

presence on the Web—a portal through which you could

provide valuable information to your patients. You contracted

with a website developer to launch such a site and populated

it with items like the practice\’s office hours, contact

information, services provided, nice pictures of your building,

and some biographical information on your staff. The problem,

however, is that you did this five years ago, and little has

been updated on the site since.\” For Ed\’s full article, click

here.\r\n

Ed Rabinowitz writes:

”Awhile back, you decided your practice needed to have a presence on the Web—a portal through which you could provide valuable information to your patients. You contracted with a website developer to launch such a site and populated it with items like the practice’s office hours, contact information, services provided, nice pictures of your building, and some biographical information on your staff. The problem, however, is that you did this five years ago, and little has been updated on the site since.”
For Ed’s full article, click here.

Indeed. In talking to physicians, dentists and other health care providers one of the most common refrains of small and mid size practices is: ”we just don’t have time to update our practice web site”. It’s a good point. Without attention, content on the site grows stale and reflects poorly on the doctor. That’s why we like so much the commitment of Go MD Web to maintain the content and links in the health library and to provide updated articles for a range of specialties.