[Framers] OTS DITA and CMS

[Robert Lauriston]

Flare would make it a lot easier to manage those projects. Its
FrameMaker import is quite good. Docs are defined by graphical TOC
trees of topic file icons. You can swap topics in or out quickly and
easily to match whatever actually ships.

What revision control system are the developers using? You could put
the docs in the codeline along with the features and generate the docs
as part of the build, automatically ensuring that the docs match the
release. I think that accounts for the popularity of Markdown /
AsciiDoc / reStructuredText plus Jekyll / Hugo / whatever despite
their relative crudeness compared with popular authoring toolchains.

Personally I would argue for more sophisticated release management
instead. "Oh, we shipped? Everybody scramble!" is a pretty good sign
you're not following best practices.

On Tue, Jul 26, 2016 at 12:17 PM, cuc tu <cuc2u at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hello All,
>
>
> I'm looking for a quick and easy transition to a more modern workflow to help keep up with
>
> software development. I've currently only authored in unstructured Frame under a book
>
> paradigm, and am finding it impossible to track development. Basically, we have two writers
>
> to support ~30 developers. The SW group has moved to an agile scrum process and create
>
> software features in modular form. Then they are checked into the SW pool and tested by
>
> another team who then publishes the FW releases to the Web team. The testing takes about 1
>
> to 2 weeks and some features may not get released. Also, we do not really know when the SW
>
> is released until it goes live (much of the process is automated and decisions happen
>
> overnight). Dev cycles are three weeks and the software is usually not available until it
>
> is checked in for testing since there are many dependencies.
>
>
> I'd like to find a way to have content more modular and easy to snap-in/out like the
>
> software folks can switch on/off software features. I've thought of trying this with
>
> conditional text, but I think the complexity and granularity of what needs to be controlled
>
> is too high. I'd also like for the writing resources to be more agile so they can work on
>
> any document piece as needed. Right now, we move around and track "book" packages and
>
> publish PDF books with incrementing revisions.
>
>
> Any suggestions on how to proceed or where to look for some ideas?