Is DITA a viable delivery format for Help?
HTML is the delivery format now used by most Help formats, whether those Help systems are delivered through a specialised viewer or browser (such as the JavaHelp viewer) or through a standard browser. Some, however, use an XML, rendered in a specialised viewer. For example, Microsoft Vista Help displays AML (Assistance Markup Language) in a Help Pane viewer.
On the face of it, XSL-T or CSS could be used to render DITA topics in most HTML-based browsers or viewers. For example, the screenshot below shows a DITA task topic compiled into a CHM file and displayed in the Microsoft HTML Help viewer, with the transformer also compiled into the CHM.
But this is only superficial. The full-text search in this case doesn't know how to search DITA content, and the table of contents is still in Microsoft's HHC format. Further, content re-use (particularly conrefs) and generated links cannot be easily implemented. To practically deliver a DITA information set on a local machine, one of the following would have to be developed:
- a specialised DITA viewer, or
- an enhanced Eclipse Help "Information Center" or similar server-based solution.