MadCap Software announced its roadmap for supporting the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) standard. With MadCap, authors will have a complete authoring and publishing suite of tools for creating, managing, translating and publishing DITA content. The products will use MadCap’s XML editor, which provides an graphical user interface for creating featured documentation that hides the XML being generated below. In the first phase of its DITA initiative, MadCap Software will add DITA support to four products: MadCap Flare, MadCap Blaze, MadCap Analyzer for reporting, MadCap Lingo. With MadCap Flare and Blaze, authors will be able to import DITA projects and topics as raw XML content, and using the XML editor, change the style sheets to get the desired look and structure. Authors will then have the option to publish the output as DITA content; print formats, such as Microsoft Word, DOCX and XPS or Adobe FrameMaker, PDF and AIR; and a range of HTML and XHTML online formats MadCap Analyzer will work directly with DITA topics and projects to allow authors to analyze and report on the content. Similarly, MadCap Lingo will import data directly from DITA topics and projects, so that it can be translated. The translated material can be published as DITA content or exported to a Flare or Blaze project. In the second phase, MadCap will enable authors to natively create and edit DITA topics in Flare and Blaze, as well as MadCap X-Edit, MadCap’s software family for creating short documents, contributing content to other documents, and reviewing content. Like Flare and Blaze, X-Edit will also support the ability to import and publish DITA information. In the third phase, MadCap will add DITA support to its forthcoming MadCap Team Server. This will make it possible to manage and share DITA content across teams and projects, as well as schedule DITA publishing. http://www.madcapsoftware.com
Category: Content creation and design (Page 49 of 60)
Technologies and strategies for authoring and editing, including word processors, structured editors, web and page layout and formatting, content conversion and migration, multichannel content, structured and unstructured data integration, and metadata creation.
MadCap Software announced the launch of MadCap Capture 3.0. Capture is MadCap’s screen capture and graphics editing software, which is designed specifically to address the needs of documentation professionals. With version 3.0, Capture adds several enhancements to provide image integration, quality, and control, including: Image text single-sourcing – Capture 3.0 expands on the integration with MadCap Flare, MadCap’s authoring software, which enables single-sourcing of content across the two applications. Now authors can enter a text description (screen tip or alternative text) for an image in a centralized location, so every time the image appears in a Flare project, the text automatically appears with it; System clipboard integration – Authors can now automatically save and insert screen captures into any application with direct system clipboard integration. Optimized size configuration for print and online publishing – Capture 3.0 allows authors to establish separate height and width settings for print and online publishing; Delayed capture – Capture 3.0 provides a time delay feature that lets you automatically capture an image after a certain number of seconds. This makes it possible to take screenshots showing elements such as drop-down menus and tool tips; Image blurring and magnification – In addition to being able to blur images around shapes, authors can now blur the area within shapes; Enhanced XPS support – Capture 3.0 provides the ability to save and load images in Microsoft XPS, providing a crisp image that does not become pixilated when someone zooms in. http://www.madcapsoftware.com/
Mary has blogged about our series of webinars with JustSystems on “Developing a Strategic Roadmap for Structured Content.”
Today’s first webinar provides an in-depth review of widely-adopted best practices for structured content, with a goal of enabling the attendees to become prepared to conduct a self-assessment of their own structured content practices. Today’s webinar also unveils the interactive ROI blueprint for structured content that we developed in conjunction with JustSystems.
Zoho announced Zoho Share, a central repository that aggregates and lists all business and personal user content published in Zoho Show presentations, Zoho Sheet spreadsheets, and Zoho Writer documents and PDFs. Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet, and Zoho Show give users several options to share and publish their content, including sharing it with select users, embedding it in a blog or making it public and accessible to anyone online. Published content, however, remains in the individual Zoho applications, with no single point of access to all published content, regardless of type or author. Zoho Share gathers all the Zoho users’ content published in the individual Zoho applications and makes it available from a central interface. When Zoho Business moves out of private beta, Zoho Share will serve as the dashboard for all published content within an organization. When users first arrive at Zoho Share they will find the following tabs across the top of the homepage: Content – displays all presentations, documents, spreadsheets, and PDF files published by Zoho users. Each content type can be sorted by criteria that include featured, recent, popular, top rated, and license based; People – shows all Zoho users who have published content. These content authors can be sorted by top contributors, recent users, and all users. Clicking on an author’s name reveals all content published by that author; My Area – displays all of the individual user’s files, both private and public. Users can also edit their files and publish content that was previously private; Upload – lets users publish desktop files directly to Zoho Share. Users can define the license type for their uploaded content. From the Upload page, users can select from “all rights reserved,” “public domain,” and six variations of “attribution.” Users do not need a Zoho account to view published content on Zoho Share. Publishing content, however, requires a Zoho account as does posting messages and adding comments. http://www.zoho.com, http://www.adventnet.com
Adlib Software and LORENZ Life Sciences announced that they have signed an OEM agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, LORENZ will license and embed Adlib’s ExpressConversion technology into future versions of LORENZ’s docuRender for MS-Word product. Adlib and LORENZ aim to eliminate submission quality concerns and automate and streamline regulatory publishing with submission-ready PDFs delivered through LORENZ’s docuBridge submission management solution. Many life sciences organizations attempt to build document conversion solutions in-house or use systems that are not suited to the rigors of the FDA eCTD (electronic Common Technical Documents) standard. Adlib and LORENZ can accommodate the large number (into the tens of thousands) and types of documents generated in today’s research environments, integrate the solution into an organization’s document workflow and provide the quality and compliance to meet any standard or regulation. http://www.lorenz.cc/, http://www.adlibsoftware.com
Swedish Polopoly and Spanish Protec, announced a technology agreement aimed at closely integrating the Polopoly Web Content Management technology with Protec’s editorial cross media platform. For Protec customers it will be easy to integrate the Milenium technology to Polopoly. Editors and journalists will be able to publish content in Milenium and from there distribute the same information through different digital channels. A journalist updating a text in Milenium will automatically have his or her text updated also in Polopoly and vice versa. Polopoly enables personalized services, such as local weather and search services, quick polls and user ratings of articles. Polopoly also offers an advanced community module, where user-generated content can be managed in co-ordination with other content. Polopoly’s features for Live Layout Management offers possibilities to create and edit web pages on the fly. Polopoly is entirely based on open standards to ensure platform independence and to simplify legacy systems integration. Protec offers with Milenium Cross Media an object oriented editorial production system built on media neutral software architecture and a multimedia CMS. Multiple use of content is enabled through connectivity features to centralized or within distributed newsroom configurations. Polopoly and Protec will be integrated using Polopoly’s integration framework. http://www.polopoly.com http://www.protecmedia.com
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Arle Lommel, LISA OSCAR Standards Chair, to discuss the importance of Unicode’s Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR) project, which collects and provides data such as date/time formats, numeric formatting, translated language and country names, and time zone information that is needed to support globalization.
LC: What is the CLDR?
AL: The Common Locale Data Repository is a volunteer-developed and maintained resource coordinated and administered by the Unicode Consortium that is available for free. Its goal is to gather basic linguistic information for various “locales,” essentially combinations of a language and a location, like French in Switzerland.
LC: What does the resource encompass?
AL: CLDR gathers things like lists of language and country names, date formats, time zone names, and so forth. This is critical knowledge to know when developing projects for the markets represented by specific locales. By drilling down past the language level to look at the market level, CLDR data is designed to be relevant for a specific area of the world. Think of the difference between U.S. and British English, for example. You would clearly have a problem if British spellings were used in a U.S. project or prices appeared like “£10.54” instead of “$10.54.” Problems like these are very common when product developers don’t think through what the implications of their design decisions will be.
LC: What other issues does CLDR address?
AL: Other problems addressed by CLDR include the numeric form of dates, where something like “04.05.06” could mean “April 5, 2006,” “May 4, 2006,” or even “May 6, 2004,” depending on where you live. Clearly you have to know what people expect.
LC: What is the advantage of using CLDR?
AL: It makes resources available to anyone, at no cost. Without something like the CLDR, one would need to investigate all of market issues, pay to translate things like country names into each language, and so forth. Activities such as this can add significantly to the cost of a project. The CLDR provides them for free and provides the critical advantage of consistency.
LC: Why should content creators care about the CLDR?
AL: At LISA we have heard time and again that not taking international issues into consideration from a project’s earliest phases doubles the cost of a project and makes it take twice as long. While many issues relate to decisions made by programmers, some of the issues do relate to the job of technical authors and other content creators. While it’s unlikely that a technical writer will need to use a CLDR list of language names in Finnish directly, for instance, the content creator might design an online form in which a user fills out what language he or she would like to be contacted in. If there is insufficient room to display the language name because it is longer in Finnish (a common problem when going from English to Finnish), the end user may have difficulty, something that could have been prevented by the content author if he or she had been given the resources to test the design early on. The CLDR makes the information available that allows authors to prevent basic problems that create issues for users around the world.
LC: How can professionals contribute to the CLDR?
AL: Right now the biggest need of the CLDR is for native (or very good) speakers of non-English languages to (1) supply missing data, and (2) verify that existing data points are correct. Because the CLDR is volunteer driven, people of all levels of competence and ability are able to contribute as much or as little as they want. Unicode welcomes this participation. The real need is for people to know about and use the CLDR. In my experience even the savviest of developers often don’t know about the CLDR and what it contains, so they spend time and money on recreating a resource that they could have for free.
LC: How is LISA supporting CLDR?
AL: We are committed to supporting Unicode and the CLDR, so we have launched an initiative where people who sign up with LISA to contribute to the CLDR and who spend ten or more hours working on the project are eligible to receive individual LISA membership for a year as a token of our appreciation for their contribution. So if any readers have the needed language/locale skills to supply data missing from the CLDR or to review existing data, they can contact me to get started.
Zimbra, a Yahoo! (Nasdaq:YHOO) company, announced the availability of its ZimbraME (Java Mobile Edition) client and source code for businesses. Users of any Java-enabled mobile phone will have access to a complete collaboration solution. The ZimbraME client provides Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) Open Source and Network Edition users worldwide with free access to the Zimbra experience with e-mail and calendar on mass-market Java-enabled mobile phones. This extends Zimbra’s reach of services to a broade range of devices available. ZimbraME is an over the air downloadable Java-based application for mobile devices that allows ZCS users to access their mail, contacts and calendars. It retains the search capability found in the Zimbra AJAX client. ZimbraME source code is available to the Zimbra community for feedback and enhancement, as well as to implement ZimbraME on the devices of their choice. Mobile devices supporting ZimbraME include the BlackBerry 8800 and 8820 series; the Motorola RAZR2; Nokia E61 and N73 handsets; the Sony-Ericsson W950i handset; and the Samsung SGH-E900 handset, adding to Zimbra’s support for wireless platforms that includes Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm and iPhone. Additionally, Zimbra supports native sync to BlackBerry handsets via the BlackBerry Enterprise Server. The ZCS 5.0 Open Source Edition is free. The commercially supported ZCS 5.0 Network Edition is available for a 60-day free trial on the Zimbra website. http://www.zimbra.com
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