Exercise 8: Creating DITA maps

In this exercise, you'll create a DITA map to include your reference, concept, and task topics. The exercise will also focus on:

  • Creating a DITA map
  • Adding topic references to include topics within the map

Ensure that you read chapter 6 of the DITA Best Practices book.

Step 1: Create a DITA map

In this assignment, you will create a DITA map and add the concept, task, and reference topics that you created in Exercises 6 and 7 to that map. To create the DITA map, perform the following steps:

  1. In oXygen, select File > New.
  2. In the New window, expand Framework templates > DITA Map > map.
  3. Select Map [DITA map/map] and click Create.
  4. In the DITA Maps Manager, right-click the DITA Topic Map text and select Edit Properties.
  5. In the Edit Map Title window, click Element and enter the title for the map.
  6. Select File > Save and save your map to the same folder as your topics. Name the file yourname-Map.ditamap.

Step 2: Add your concept, reference, and task topics to the map

Add each of your topics to the map by performing the following steps:

  1. In the DITA Maps Manager, right-click the map title.
  2. From the menu, select Append child > Topic Reference.
  3. In the Insert Reference window, navigate to the folder that contains the topics.
  4. Select the concept topic.
  5. Set Type to the topic type, Format to dita, and Scope to local.
  6. Click Insert and Close.
  7. Repeat steps 1 through 6 for each topic. (Use Insert After > Topic Reference instead of Append child > Topic Reference if you want to insert something as a peer to the topic instead of subordinate to the topic.)

Ensure that your final structure looks like the following:

DITA Map 
   Concept
   Task - Recipe 1
       Reference – Recipe 1 ingredients
   Task – Recipe 2
       Reference – Recipe 2 ingredients
   Task – Recipe 3
       Reference – Recipe 3 ingredients

Step 3: Create PDF and WebHelp versions of the map

Create a PDF rendition and a WebHelp rendition of the map and topics. To transform the XML into PDF and html versions, complete the following steps:

  1. In the DITA Maps Manager, click the Apply Transformation Scenario(s) button.
  2. In the Transform with window, select the DITA Map PDF and DITA Map WebHelp check boxes.
  3. Click Apply associated.

Step 4: Zip your files and turn them in

Include the following files in a ZIP file ("yourName-DITAmap.zip") and upload to BlackBoard:

  • the DITA map
  • concept topic from Assignment 6
  • 3 task topics from Assignment 6
  • 3 reference topics from Assignment 7
  • folder with Webhelp output
  • PDF file