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usexdita
Larry Kollar
Oje Media

Using XDITA Topics

XDITA is a simplified version of DITA's topic topic type. DITA-OT 3.2 and newer versions provide native support for XDITA, through the included org.oasis-open.xdita plugin.

Use cases for XDITA include:

  • Authoring in an XML format, but with a limited set of elements and attributes that are easy to remember.
  • Writing original content in a mixed environment, anticipating a future shift to full DITA.
  • The need to exchange topics with other departments or partners using DITA.
  • Working with complex topics that cannot be written comfortably in HDITA or MDITA.

Reasons you may prefer another LwDITA format include:

  • Your writers (or their tools) are not equipped to work with XML formats.
  • You need tables with @rowspan or @colspan attributes, which are not supported by the XDITA <simpletable>.
  • You exchange source files with groups that do not use XML.

XDITA is, as one would guess, the closest of the three formats to full-weight DITA.

Example

In the following example:

  • The DOCTYPE declaration differentiates XDITA topics from full-weight DITA topic types.

  • The <prolog> element contains metadata, except for the ID, which is an attribute of the <topic> element.

  • Note that in the <body>, most text must be wrapped in <p> elements. This is true for paragraphs, list items, and table cells in LwDITA, but not in full DITA. However, the <title> and <shortdesc> elements do not require paragraphs.

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD LIGHTWEIGHT DITA Topic//EN" "lw-topic.dtd">
<topic id="install_feechurr_client">
    <title>Installing the Feechurr Client</title>
    <shortdesc>The Feechurr installer walks you through
      the steps of installing the Feechurr client.</shortdesc>
    <prolog>
        <data name="author" value="Betty X. Empel"/>
        <data name="source"
          value="http://dev.example.com/feechurr/installer/index.html"/>
        <data name="audience" value="enduser"/>
    </prolog>
    <body>
        <p>To install the client:</p>
        <ol>
            <li><p>Double-click the Feechurr Installer package.</p></li>
            <li><p>Follow the instructions on your screen.</p></li>
        </ol>
    </body>
</topic>

Other DITA constructs are supported, as follows.

Unordered lists:

<ul>
    <li><p>List item text</p></li>
    <li><p>Another list item</p></li>
    ...
</ul>

Definition lists:

<dl>
    <dlentry>
        <dt><p>Term</p></dt>
        <dd><p>Definition</p></dd>
    </dlentry>
    ...
</dl>

Sections:

<section>
    <title>Optional Title</title>
    <p>Some more information that goes in this section.</p>
    <p>Includes paragraphs, lists, and tables (but not other sections).</p>
</section>

Tables (simpletable):

<simpletable>
    <sthead>
        <stentry><p>Option</p></stentry>
        <stentry><p>Description</p></stentry>
    </sthead>
    <strow>
        <stentry><p>-c</p></stentry>
        <stentry><p>Cobbles the output files together in random order.</p></stentry>
    </strow>
    ...
</simpletable>

Images (block):

<fig>
  <title>Optional image title</title>
  <image href="../images/foo.jpg"><alt>Accessibility text</alt></image>
</fig>

Images (inline):

<image href="../icons/dwim.png"/>

Linked video (not terribly useful for PDF):

<video>
  <desc>Description</desc>
  <media-source value="https://www.youtube.com/embed/G0bB13dY-600K"/>
</video>

Cross-references use the <xref> element.

<xref href="some_topic.md#topicID"/>
<xref href="some_topic.md#topicID">link text</xref>
<xref href="http://example.com/feechurr/index.html" scope="external">An
  external reference</xref>

Notes and related admonitions (caution, warning, tip) use the <note> element.

<note>You need to do something here.</note>
<note type="caution">You probably shouldn't do this, though.</note>
<note type="tip">Use the format="markdown" attribute for a topicref
   to include a Markdown topic in your book map.</note>

Footnotes:

<p>The best way to do this<fn>This has not been tested.</fn> is to
pull the pin and see what happens.</p>

Inline text highlighting in XDITA is restricted to <b>, <i>, <u>, and superscripts and subscripts (<sup> and <sub>). The functionality is mostly equivalent to Markdown, except that XDITA does not have <codeph>, the equivalent to the backtick construct in Markdown. If you need more structural markup, say for code snippets or citations, use a <ph> element and set the @outputclass attribute. Your transform can use this information to provide further highlighting.