Add ability to create books within a book in WebHelp output using the DITA adapter.
Summary
I would like to use the DITA adapter to create books within a book in the WebHelp output of my DITA project. Right now, with ePublisher 2010.2, I can only create one level of books in the WebHelp output's navigation pane. I can not create a sub-book to a book like I can with ePublisher's FrameMaker adapter. Therefore, your DITA adapter needs to be able to support books within a book in the output. This is also known as nested DITA maps.
Right now, for version 2010.2, Ben said that ePublisher's DITA adapter does support nested DITA maps, but it treats them as if they were a single large document as it uses the DITA Open Toolkit to create the output. All the content is there in the output, but it is not distinct help sets. As a result, the WebHelp output lists all the nested maps as books all at the same level in the WebHelp output's navigation pane, with no sub-books. That is a software limitation that needs to be fixed by an enhancement to the DITA adapter, as using sub-books is a common development technique to online help output of all kinds.
Detailed Description
Here's what Ben said to me about this issue:
On 9/17/2010
Jack,
I will add this to the enhancement request list. The big issue here is that it requires divorcing ePublisher from the DITA-OT for pre-processing. Not rocket science, yet it is one of those things that you can get dinged for if you implement it incorrectly.
Regarding the DITA 1.2 spec, the rules are the same as far as I know. That segment I cut/pasted into the support case was taken from the DITA 1.2 language reference.
Ben
On 9/15/2010
Jack,
Right now, ePublisher cannot support what you are requesting. The main reason this is not possible is due to the fact that ePublisher is invoking the DITA-OT to handling pre-processing on your DITA maps.
Per the DITA specification (DITA 1.2 in this case, but the info still applies):
<http://docs.oasis-open.org/dita/v1.2/cd03/spec/langref/xref.html>
Cross references that use only direct URI-based addressing (href) to point to other topics create dependencies such that if the topic with the cross-reference is included in a given map, the target topic must also be included or the cross-reference will not be resolvable in the context of that map.
So, I can add this to the enhancement request backlog, but I do not have a straight-forward way to deliver this capability to you today.
Ben
Use Cases
Here are the related cases: - Case # 00012649 - Case #00013508