Structuring a project (bis)

[Kathleen Jette <kjette -at- progress -dot- com>]

Hi Claudine, 

I've been using DITA for several years now, but I'm a captive writer so
I'm not sure what issues might arise in the case you mention. You would
probably get more of a response on a DITA-specific site such as
dita-users (http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/dita-users/).

As usual with these things, IT DEPENDS. To be able to help you figure
out the best structure, I'd need to understand your situation a lot
better. I'd be glad to help you offline. 

Regards, 
Kathleen Jette
Senior Technical Writer


-----Original Message-----
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2010 16:14:45 +0100
From: "Claudine CHAUSSON" <claudine -dot- chausson -at- jwaretechnologies -dot- com>
Subject: Structuring a project (bis)

Hi everyone

First of all, I wish you a very happy and prosperous year 2010.

Then, I'm posting this message again as the first time I didn't get any
answer.  I'm probably unclear in my explanations of the issue I'm facing
but
I find it hard to explain it clearly as I don't have any idea on how to
solve it. Any help would be really appreciated. I'm interested too if
you
have readings to suggest about projects structuring.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~

I have an issue with the structure of my project. I use DITA, Oxygen to
edit
it, and ClearCase for version control. I output to pdf.

I?m writing the same manual for 2 different clients (but it could be for
more clients). Many topics are common, some are specific and some are of
a
mixed type. I could use metadata to tag the information and then use
DITAVAL
to include or exclude topics; it works well. But how can I do if I need
to
create a manual for a new client and then another new one, and so on?
I figured I could use different folders and follow a structure similar
to
this:

- ManualName
? O Client1
????* Client1 Images
????*(list of files specific to Client1 + Client1 project + Client1
ditamap)
??O Client2
????* Client2 Images
????*(list of files specific to Client2 + Client2 project + Client2
ditamap)
??O Images????????? 
??O (list of common files)

Is it feasible (and viable) to work like this? What about mixed type
topics
(topics that are mostly common but the terminology, for instance, is
different)? How can I manage those? With DITAVAL? Variables (using
conref
and not keyref as I'm using DITA 1.1)

Any insight will be appreciated.

Claudine CHAUSSON
Technical writer
JWARE Technologies

Mail/to: claudine -dot- chausson -at- jwaretechnologies -dot- com
http://: www.jwaretechnologies.com
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