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Using Chunked Content

The theory of developing new documents from legacy components is fairly simple, if the repository is implemented properly. First, the designer needs to know what other training this new training is similar to. If it is completely new and dissimilar from other training, then the designer gets nothing from the repository but templates. Having made a shrewd guess about some other similar training, the designer has to define how this new training is different from the similar training that has been identified.

One method of handling the query process is by a web page containing drop down field list properties. Define 5 or 6 of these and then add in some more specific customizing terms, click submit and get a list back of matching content. It is just like doing a web search, except that the web you are searching is a discrete database. What is returned from the search can take many different forms: FrameMaker document, raw XML, Word document or HTML.

\includegraphics[width=4in]{Images/production.eps}

Some authoring environments, such as Epic Editor, work from the data structure back out to the content. At the beginning, these tools can be difficult for some designers to understand and use efficiently. After the designers become familiar with the database structure, they rapidly learn how to navigate through the maze of information to find those things they want. Even if the designers are working in a pure XML environment, they will still find the ability to easily query the database invaluable.

In practice, authors working with common, standardized documents rapidly learn what five or six element attributes they have to specify to see 90% of the pertinent content to their training. It is more difficult, at the beginning, than cutting and pasting content, but once you get it into your stride, it becomes ten times faster and easier to do your job.

How the content is organized into new instances is a question of authoring tools, not XML.


next up previous index
Next: Tools Up: Process Previous: Legacy Content Chunking   Index
root 2003-07-21