During the last decade Mekon have worked with many organisations providing
specialist content services around best of breed solutions. The need for dynamic
delivery and collaboration has been a continued theme hindered by the limited
technology available to support a solution.
To address this, we present DITAweb – a cloud-based service that truly leverages the
potential of structured information. With DITAweb, users can maximise the use of
modular, platform independent content, going far beyond traditional websites,
tri-pane help or basic feedback features.
Engage Your Customers, Partners and Subject Matter Experts
Our customers often ask us how
internal reviewers and subject
matter experts can comment and
collaborate, while simultaneously
seeking ways for customers and
external communities to rate,
enhance and bookmark key
information on the same platform,
providing direct feedback to
authors. After solving the same
problem for various clients,
we decided to put together
the DITAweb service to let
our customers cost-effectively
prototype and deploy DITA for
dynamic delivery, collaboration
and review all at once.
The Flexibility of a DITA Cloud Service
Organisations new to DITA or
with existing DITA content can
integrate the DITAweb service
into their workflow. DITAweb
can work off the file system or
integrate with a component
content management system
(CCMS). Content can be published
for delivery to both internal and
external reviewers and users.
Content in DITAweb is delivered
from a single platform, retaining
the benefits of structured content
(the XML semantics) right to
the point of consumption and
without the need to purchase
product licenses or setup internal
infrastructure.
Achieve Better Customer Experience, Not Just Cheaper Content
DITA content saves the company money, but organisations often leave benefit on the table when they don't leverage what DITA can do for delivery itself. In DITAweb content is stored as DITA XML right up to the moment it's requested, then cached to ensure solid performance.
DITAweb allows you to integrate DITA content into any existing website or delivery pipeline, enabling delivery of the right content, to the right people, in the right format.
Pick and Mix Content from Any Device
Users can pick and mix content to create personalised PDFs,
eBooks or other formats for later reference or printing. DITAweb
is available as a hosted service with a user-friendly ‘online help’
style web interface with potential for smartphone and tablet
connectivity.
Ask us for a demo.
Technical Overview
DITAweb stores content directly from
your content management system or
by manual upload. DITA maps created
from any compliant authoring tool can
also be uploaded.
Users are assigned to groups which in
turn have roles. For example, a
“reviewer” may have permission to add
annotations, whilst a “consumer” may
be limited to reading content. Groups
can also be assigned to content further
restricting what users are allowed to see.
Annotations are stored against content
at either the topic or paragraph level.
These annotations can then be viewed
back into the authoring tool (such
as XMetaL) if enabled for their CMS.
Real-time messaging provides users
with updates to content changes
and annotations, facilitating dynamic
content collaboration.
DITAweb’s integration with a CCMS
maintains references to the source
content and keeps track of the versions
when published into DITAweb
allowing for future integration
between CMS and delivery platforms.
Since all content is stored as DITA XML,
users are able to download an instance
of a publication or topic, or indeed a
personalized collection of topics as
PDF, eBook or other format for offline
viewing or printing.
RESTful APIs
RESTful APIs are becoming the norm
for most social-enabled web sites such
as Twitter, Facebook and Linked-in.
These provide a scalable web-based
approach to application development
where, in the case of DITAweb, content
can be accessed and integrated into
other applications or systems. This
might include integration with existing
web content management systems,
the development of dedicated web
sites, or mobile phone applications.
