Enable TDD methodologies and in-place object creation in Editor (similar to ProE behavior)

[jfrankovich]

I come from the CAD side of things and we are fairly new to DITA and Arbortext, so I was quite surprised to find that my technical writers could not construct their DITA documents using TDD methodologies similar to ProE to create a document structure and each subcomponent/map/topic of the structure in a quick and efficient manner. For example, I think you should be able to create a bookmap and then create (in-place and without launching a completely new Editor window) each map or topic contained in the bookmap as a "placeholder" file from a template. Then, once the high level structure has been developed, the new topics can either be directly edited in place or be assigned and worked on as required. It would be very similar to the ways that engineers can create an assembly and its structure (subs and parts) using template files. This probably isn't the way every org wants to work, but for medium and small sized publications I think it would be a nice option. Let's see if anyone else feels the same way....

[Pushpinder_Toor]

Hello John,

As you may already be aware, today you can use the Resource Manager to create a map and then start building empty "template" topics. You don't have to launch multiple Editor windows to do this. You can go back later and actually create content into those topics. It's what most folks refer to as the "top-down" approach.

Once you create this high level structure, you can check the map into Windchill (and subsequently all its children topics) and assign them or put them into a specific workflow.

Does this address most of what you are asking for?

[Alessio]

John,

if you want to perform top-down-design within Editor, then do as suggested by Pushpinder. You might need to configure the document types that you have available in the Resource Manager under the "New Topic" tab; in order to do so, please see the Arbortext Help Center topic titled "Specifying the document types displayed in the Resource Manager" (this is listed under Architect in the profile settings).

If you want to perform top-down-design in Windchill, without using Editor, then this is not currently possible, as you need to first create empty objects (from a template) in Windchill, corresponding to your topics, and then assign them to the Information and/or Publication structures. Information and Publication structures support half top-down-design as they enable you to create the upper structure top-down, but there is currently no way to hang topics below them if such topics do not currently exist.

If you intended to refer to this second option, please clarify that in this post, and I will vote for your idea!

Alessio

[olivierlp]

Hello,

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