Thursday, November 1, 2007
Keeping track
Here's why I wouldn't do our DITA project without a CMS (even though we're doing the DITA project without a CMS): In one section of one manual, I have 133 topics. That's my smaller section. I don't have the numbers at hand for the larger section but I am responsible for approximately 400 topics. Keeping track of that many fluttery bits would drive a sane person mad.
We think we're being very clever, though. While we wait for the CMS and authoring tool to talk to each other, we use both sides of our brain. Our left side is busy organizing methods to limp through production without the CMS. Our right side is busy imagining what we need to make the final process, post-integration of CMS and authoring, happen with as much safe, clean processing as we currently have (unless you're one of the writers who shall remain nameless but who cannot make things work, it's like there is a curse on that writer).
Right now, we've been developing sections, zipping those up into a single file, and putting that file into the CMS. This has led to some interesting results as we all have different versions of the tools we're using to zipitdodah. Workaround number 722 is discovered and is carefully documented in our playbook.
We're looking at modifying this somewhat. Right now we all work off our our folders on a shared drive or our computer. Sometimes we like to work off site and not all of us have danced with IS to get access to the servers at work from off site. Hmm. But, what we're thinking of doing is collecting our work folders together. When you want to go off site, take copies of some files with you. Load them back up when you return. Here's the thing that took some time to wrap some heads around... it doesn't break my work to point to your file that is out of date. As long as the file name (and ID) remain the same, my link works. When you bring back the cool new version of the topic, drop the file into the same location, and my map will pull up the new version without a flicker of concern.
Fortunately, our mix of skills means that there is always someone available to work through a problem.
We think we're being very clever, though. While we wait for the CMS and authoring tool to talk to each other, we use both sides of our brain. Our left side is busy organizing methods to limp through production without the CMS. Our right side is busy imagining what we need to make the final process, post-integration of CMS and authoring, happen with as much safe, clean processing as we currently have (unless you're one of the writers who shall remain nameless but who cannot make things work, it's like there is a curse on that writer).
Right now, we've been developing sections, zipping those up into a single file, and putting that file into the CMS. This has led to some interesting results as we all have different versions of the tools we're using to zipitdodah. Workaround number 722 is discovered and is carefully documented in our playbook.
We're looking at modifying this somewhat. Right now we all work off our our folders on a shared drive or our computer. Sometimes we like to work off site and not all of us have danced with IS to get access to the servers at work from off site. Hmm. But, what we're thinking of doing is collecting our work folders together. When you want to go off site, take copies of some files with you. Load them back up when you return. Here's the thing that took some time to wrap some heads around... it doesn't break my work to point to your file that is out of date. As long as the file name (and ID) remain the same, my link works. When you bring back the cool new version of the topic, drop the file into the same location, and my map will pull up the new version without a flicker of concern.
Fortunately, our mix of skills means that there is always someone available to work through a problem.
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