DITA-BASED DOCUMENTATION FOR COMPLEX SOFTWARE PRODUCTS

This webinar describes the challenges of providing documentation for broad software portfolios with heavy reuse of software components between products, and at the same time, managing extremely complex versioning. Learn how a company used specialized DITA maps to componentize documentation according to software components, described the interdependencies between software components, and provided for reuse. For each release, containers reflecting the software were strung together in a hierarchy to define the content set and linking rules within it.

Linking is not limited to a single map; linking between maps are supported through navrefs and peer-linking, which allows the connection of hundreds of maps in a large documentation set for maximum usability for customers. For maximum flexibility, the DITA 1.2 keydef/keyref model of indirect referencing was used, resulting in a dramatic reduction of the number of new topics required for new versions, and easier maintenance for authors. Authors only have to change topics once, even if the new feature is reused in various software products. And true to the DITA model, single source files can be output to multiple formats, as required by the software release.