Profiling problems with chapter.author-dita.ditamap

[raducoravu]

The DITA Map profiles all its topics for "author authorEclipse editor editorEclipse" but some of the content in there also makes sense for "developer" and "developerEclipse"

The XML Developer does not have a DITA Maps Manager view and the Author visual editor mode. But from it you can still create DITA scenarios and publish with them.
So the entire "Transforming DITA Maps and Topics" hierarchy of topic references would seem to be appropriate for inclusion in the XML Developer.
The same with "DITA-OT Customization", "DITA Specialization Support" and "Use a New DITA Open Toolkit in Oxygen".

[mbakeranalecta]

In terms of capability, certainly. My question would be, would anyone buy Developer for this purpose? And do you want to position Developer for this use?

I think that anyone doing DITA development is going to want to use Editor, as they are going to be working with authors who will be working in Author view.

To my mind, the target audience for Developer is people doing data-oriented or back-end XML that does not have an authoring component to it.

I think it is ultimately more appropriate to target documentation at the intended uses of a product rather than the strict limits of its capability -- especially when you offer another product that is designed specifically for those use cases.

[raducoravu]

The XML Developer allows users to edit XSLT stylesheets and to run any kind of transformation scenario (XSLT, ANT, DITA OT). So in my opinion the user manual should reflect all the product's capabilities.
One possibility would be that one power user buys XML Developer in order to perform XSLT stylesheet customizations for the DITA Open Toolkit. The power user is not interested in the Author visual editing mode (some people prefer to see the XML as it is) so he decides not to buy the full XML Editor.

[mbakeranalecta]

Okay. This then raises the question of whether there is other material that should also be included in the docs for developer. Essentially the difference between Developer and Author/Editor is not what tasks it is suited for, but whether you want to perform those tasks in a GUI or in a text environment.

[raducoravu]

Unfortunately we cannot find this out by running an automated process so we'll just have to wait and see if we find similar problems while working on the user manual in DITA form. We'll also rely on users to maybe write us if they find any feature that an application has but is not documented in the user's manual.