Mif2Go Content Models

[Jeremy H. Griffith]

On Thu, 25 Sep 2008 08:52:54 -0400, "Denise Kadilak" <Denise.Kadilak at Blackbaud.com> wrote:

>I'm a very new user of Mif2Go - trying to test it a bit and see if this
>is a direction we should consider. My current goal is to produce DITA
>XML from structured FrameMaker files, and following the Mif2Go User's
>Guide, I'm trying to generate a content model from our DTD. 

You only need to do that if you have specialized from the standard
DITA DTDs.  If you are just using the OASIS DTDs, the content models
are built in to Mif2Go, for both 1.0 and 1.1.

>The User's Guide refers me to the dtd2ini.txt file for instructions on
>producing the content model configuration file, and this txt file
>instructs me to download the XML parser RXP. The instructions claim the
>download is available on the OMSYS download page - I don't' see it. I
>attempted to locate a Windows download on the internet - I can't find
>one. 

All you need is on our download page under "XML Utilities":
  http://www.omsys.com/dcl/download.htm#XML_Downloads
You should need only two of the four .zips, dtd2ini02win.zip and
contentmodels.zip.

Perhaps what confused you was this in dtd2ini.txt (which is in the
dtd2ini02win.zip on the above page):

  dtd2ini is based on the validating XML parser RXP.  We wish to thank
  Richard Tobin, the author of RXP, for creating that parser, and for 
  his kind advice during development of dtd2ini.

  RXP is open source, licensed under the GPL v.2, and therefore dtd2ini
  is also open source under the same license.  Both the current Windows
  executable and the full C source are available on Omni Systems' web
  site, and are freely downloadable without any obligation, from:
    http://www.omsys.com/dcl/download.htm

This is *not* telling you to download RXP; that's not necessary, since
dtd2ini.exe, furnished in the same .zip, *contains* all the RXP code
needed.  The reason you need to download dtd2ini separately from the 
regular Mif2Go package is licensing.  We can't legally include a GPL
program in the same .zip as a commercial product.  We're a bit fanatical
about respecting software licenses, including the GPL, so it's a .zip
of its own.  That is also why we have another .zip next to it with
the full C source code for dtd2ini; that too is required by the GPL.

If anyone does want to download RXP itself, it is available at:
  http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~richard/rxp.html
Again, it is *not* necessary to do that to use Mif2Go or dtd2ini.

>The instructions in the txt file are a little messy in general, but now
>I'm worrying that they may also be out-of-date. Does anyone have some
>advice on the Mif2Go documentation in general or my problem
>specifically? I'm also very prepared to accept full responsibility for
>this confusion. I fear I may be in over my head with this tool.

Sorry!  I'm personally responsible for that .txt file, which is an
object lesson on why programmers should not write docs.  Mea culpa!

The primary Mif2Go doc, the 1000-page User's Guide, is much better,
because it was written by a real TW.  Imagine that!  ;-)

Please feel free to write us directly if you have any other problems!

-- Jeremy H. Griffith, at Omni Systems Inc.
  <jeremy at omsys.com>  http://www.omsys.com/