Test Driving the Componize DITA XML Solution

Componize kindly granted me a trial of their Componize Cloud-based system. They sent me a very nice Getting Started email and a password reset.

The Componize user guide, Getting Started topic (requires trial login) looks like the Eclipse Help output from the DITA OpenToolkit. The user guide didn't immediately say how to check-out, modify and check-in content but that's OK because, once I located the DITAmap and topics, I could easily click the "Edit online with DITA Storm button" to open it in a new browser tab.

The following sections describe my first attempts to use Componize with DITA XML content.

First: Change some content

1. Click the My Home link at the top left.
2. In the Alfresco Explorer, drill down to locate the content.





3. Click the Edit Online with DITA Storm button.
4. Make some changes and click Save.

But that isn't really appropriate for a multi-user environment. What we really need to do is check-out, change and check-in a file.

To check-out, change and check-in a topic:

1. From the drop-down, select Check Out, select a location for the working copy, and click Check Out.
2. This creates a working copy.



3. Edit the working copy and click the Check In icon.

Second: Publish

1. In the Alfresco Explorer, navigate to the DITAmap.
2. Click the drop-down and select Run Output Processing.





3. Select the output format (pipeline) you want, and click Add to List.
4. At the top right, click OK.

The screen refreshes surprisingly quickly to show Log files for <ditamap> with the result clearly listed under Results Document with the correct time and date.

In the trial the PDF displays using the default DITA OpenToolkit appearance with my changes included.