topic Re: XML files, DITA and the Open Toolkit in Alfresco Archive

XML files, DITA and the Open Toolkit

todd_acl — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:09:50 GMT

Hi,I've seen a few threads here that offer only a dearth of information about managing XML files and setting up the Alfresco environment for using DITA. All the online Alfresco demonstrations center around MS-Office files, which we do not use.Am I missing something here? I mean, XML & DITA app

Re: XML files, DITA and the Open Toolkit

todd_acl — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 17:15:17 GMT

I appreciate the enlightening lack of response. Apparently we require a different solution for our DITA-based publications. Perhaps during Phase III of our initiative, in which we plan to expand content management to the entire enterprise, we will revisit Alfresco's potential.

With that in mind, here's another question: What kinds of standard protocols/frameworks would we need to consider for our DITA-DMS to make it interoperate with an ECM environment that centers around Alfresco?

Keep up the good work.

Re: XML files, DITA and the Open Toolkit

rhowlett — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 01:36:28 GMT

I have been experimenting with DITA Storm, a DITA-aware XML editor that works inside the browser. I am trying to integrate it with Alfresco - it works with many other CMSs, so getting it to work with Alfresco shouldn't be a big deal.

The DITA Open Toolkit uses the same underlying technologies as Alfresco (such as Ant) and it should not be too much of a challenge to publish DITA maps.

I am also surprised in the lack of enthusiasm for DITA in the Alfresco community. Content reuse requires a topic-oriented approach, not a document-centric one.

Re: XML files, DITA and the Open Toolkit

paulhh — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 14:06:59 GMT

Hi Todd

We certainly are very interested in XML processing and to be honest, we've been waiting for the DITA "wave". But it hasn't hit us yet.

Obviously, our repository and services can work with XML very happily. There are XML metadata extractors that can populate content properties from the XML content. The scripting and templating engines can manipulate XML. We also have XSL and XSL-FO transformation hooks.

If you have a DITA editor, then it can work directly on content in the repository over CIFS/SMB, webDAV or FTP.

Tell us what you're looking for in more detail and we can try and respond. If you're likely to want to take out a support contract, then there's more incentive for us to get people to help you (just reality, we have to pay our staff).

The .doc support is there because that's what a lot of people have asked for - basically, so they can use Alfresco instead of SharePoint.

Cheers
Paul.

Re: XML files, DITA and the Open Toolkit

todd_acl — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 00:36:15 GMT

Thanks very much for the responses, Paul and rhowlett. I appreciate all the information I can gather about Alfresco.

I figured the DITA stuff was probably a matter of "Alfresco community members will get on that as soon as it's feasible." It was a good call to provide support for .doc early, even if our own team doesn't use that particular format. I'll be interested in seeing what Alfresco can do with MS-XML files.

I have tried Dita Storm and like what it offers. We're hoping to use FrameMaker as our DITA/XML editor so we can continue to work on legacy unstructured documentation as well. I really like Alfresco's CIFS support; that would make change management a lot easier as our authors move up the learning curve of structured production methodologies.

All in all, I'd recommend Alfresco in a heartbeat for enterprise content management (over Nuxeo as well). It's just the specific, technical requirements that we have for XML/DITA/OpenToolKit/SCORM/translation/localization that is encouraging our team to evaluate products focused toward that kind of publishing environment (e.g. SiberSafe).

Because of our subjective distaste for GPL, we would probably want to pursue some kind of commercial licensing agreement if we decided to use Alfresco. We're still in the early stages of our research.

Thanks again. I'll be lurking & posting here as I narrow down the specifics of what we need for our ECM/DMS solution.

Todd

Re: XML files, DITA and the Open Toolkit

paulhh — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 08:41:40 GMT

Hi

I just heard from someone yesterday that they have been doing a number of things with DITA and Docbook formats, and plan to make it available as open source. Not sure when this will happen, but could be reasonably soon.

Cheers
Paul.

Re: XML files, DITA and the Open Toolkit

davidheijl — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 12:31:38 GMT

Hi Todd,

I've also been in contact with an Alfresco Partner who will be releasing a solution for just what you're looking for. It's also what I'm looking for in my documentation team…
Basically, they've built an XML solution on top of Alfresco and it all sounds very interesting. As soon as I can give more details I'll post them…

David

Re: XML files, DITA and the Open Toolkit

paulhh — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 12:40:37 GMT

… that'll be the same person I was talking to then 😉

Re: XML files, DITA and the Open Toolkit

todd_acl — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:59:40 GMT

Thanks, guys, for the information. I'll keep my eyes peeled for this interesting open source addition to Alfresco.

Re: XML files, DITA and the Open Toolkit

snunez — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 23:58:08 GMT

The timing on this was good. I too am looking for a XML authoring solution, one that hopefully includes DocBook.

I had a look around, but didn't see anything on the website. Has this been released yet? If not, does anyone have an ETA?

Cheers,
- SteveN

Re: XML files, DITA and the Open Toolkit

craig — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 16:07:06 GMT

as another supremely interested in docbook publishing via alfresco

Re: XML files, DITA and the Open Toolkit

ibamsey — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:17:57 GMT

I'm surprised that document production from XML (DocBook/DITA etc.) is not widely used and supported in Alfresco.

This is a primary requirement for us. We create XML documents for contracts, proposals, manuals etc. The XML contains many parameters which are included at build time (e.g. client name, credit terms, telephone number …) the outputs is XSL-FO used to generate HTML for web presentation (intranet) and PDF as final records.

Our current scripts use Velocity and ANT and Docbook-xsl. The xsl transforms are installed on the server (100s of files). The final document is produced from a single XML source and a properties file. The ant script include references to the file system locations.

Based on the above, what approach to extending Alfresco is recommended? I feel that some Wiki documentation on a XML/XSLT/XSL-FO publishing pipeline setup would help a lot of people.

An earlier post referred to a user working on DITA/DocBook. Any further news?

Re: XML files, DITA and the Open Toolkit

dmatejka — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 16:46:30 GMT

that is exactlly what we want to achieve.. cross-media publishing of documents from XML (DocBook/DITA).

Re: XML files, DITA and the Open Toolkit

elizabeth — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:48:15 GMT

I just joined the forum, but a friend referred me to this topic. My colleague and I need to migrate our book-format documentation, currently written in unstructured FrameMaker, to a topic-based online format very soon. We're looking seriously at DITA as the data model. We think we'll also need a content management system, and our marketing writer really likes Alfresco. I was surprised to read on this thread that Alfresco, at least as of Jan. 08, didn't offer full support for DITA. What's the current status on that? If functionality for working with DITA/Open Toolkit files is still partial, what are the features that are missing?

Thanks!
Elizabeth

Re: XML files, DITA and the Open Toolkit

jl_borie — Thu, 15 May 2008 07:54:34 GMT

Hi Elizabeth, hi all,

As paulhh wrote, we have indeed developed Componize, a DITA solution that embeds Alfresco (see Alfresco Wiki).
Actually, it is much more than a simple DITA extension for Alfresco. Componize is a complete XML-based Component Content Management system. It offers full DITA & DocBook support, and many authoring, management and publication specific features.

We have planned to release Componize V1 on July 15, 2008.
Until then, be patient… a Beta version and a website will be released on June 15, 2008.

Cheers,

Jean-Luc Borie
Componize

Re: XML files, DITA and the Open Toolkit

jabberwocky — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:23:41 GMT

Any update on when Componize will be available - I'd like to use it on a project.

Re: XML files, DITA and the Open Toolkit

snunez — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 02:16:37 GMT

Reviving this old thread…..

Does anyone know what the 'state of the art' is for DocBook publishing/management within Alfresco?

It's about a year since Componise was going to be released, but the Wiki page still shows it pending.

Has anyone got DocBook 5 working within Alfresco? In theory, it looks as easy as importing the XSD as a WebForm and using the provided XSLTs to publish, but there's a lot of semantic markup in DocBook.

Cheers,
- SteveN

Re: XML files, DITA and the Open Toolkit

ghernando — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:51:54 GMT

Yes. I'm interested in this as well.
Is there any update?

Thanks