Section 1. About DITA support in XMLmind XML Editor

DITA 1.3 support

(XXE for short) allows to edit topics, maps and bookmaps conforming to the DITA 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 DTD and W3C XML Schema.

As of version 7.2, XXE allows to create, edit and convert DITA documents conforming to the DITA 1.3 DTD, W3C XML Schema or RELAX NG schema.

In fact, when XXE v7.2+ is used, DITA 1.2 documents are automatically “upgraded” to DITA 1.3. This is caused by the fact that the following <!DOCTYPE> means "use latest version of the DITA DTD":

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
<topic id="MyTopic">
...
</topic>

This should not be a problem as DITA 1.3 is a superset of DITA 1.2. However if for any reason, you prefer to stick to DITA 1.2 elements, please download and install the XXE add-on called "Keep using DITA 1.2". This is done using menu item Options → Install Add-ons.

Technical content only

XMLmind XML Editor only supports "Technical content elements

". This includes machinery task

and the task requirements domain

but excludes classification elements

. Other vocabularies such as "Learning and training elements

" are not supported.

DITAVAL

conditional processing profiles and subject scheme maps

are also supported.

Using the DITA W3C XML Schema or RELAX NG schema rather than the DITA DTD

By default, a DITA document created using XMLmind XML Editor (e.g. File → New) conform to the DITA DTD and not to the W3C XML Schema or to the RELAX NG schema.

This can be easily changed by uncommenting out the alternative documents templates found in XXE_install_dir/addon/config/dita/topic.xxe, map.xxe, bookmap.xxe, ditaval.xxe, subjectScheme.xxe.⁽¹⁾. Excerpts from XXE_install_dir/addon/config/dita/topic.xxe:

<!-- Same templates but using a RELAX NG schema rather than a DTD ==========
<template name="Concept" location="template/rng/concept.dita" 
          category="DITA" order="510" />
<template name="Task (Strict)" location="template/rng/strictTask.dita" 
          category="DITA" order="520" />
...
<template name="Multiple Topics" location="template/rng/dita.dita" 
          category="DITA" order="600" />
======================================================================== -->

XMLmind DITA Converter, a serious alternative to the DITA Open Toolkit

Unlike its competitors, XMLmind XML Editor does not leverage the DITA Open Toolkit

to convert DITA documents to formats such as XHTML, Web Help, PDF, RTF, etc. Instead XXE embeds, free, open source, XMLmind DITA Converter

.

XMLmind DITA Converter (ditac for short) has exactly the same level of DITA support as XMLmind XML Editor.

Note that ditac has no problem processing a DITA document pointing to a RELAX NG schema, rather than to a DTD or W3C XML Schema:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?xml-model href="urn:oasis:names:tc:dita:rng:topic.rng"?>
<topic id="MyTopic">
...
</topic>

The <?xml-model?> processing-instruction used in the above example is the standard way to associate a document to a RELAX NG schema. See "Associating Schemas with XML documents 1.0"

.