S1000D - "sense out of confusion"

Handing On

2022-03-31T13:43:00.000+00:00

Signing Off

I have been writing this blog on and off for quite a few years, actually from when I joined Mekon. More relcenly it has been more intermittent mainly due to the nature of the specification changes in a lot of cases not being quite so earth shattering. In all this time I have very rarely pushed Mekon products because I believed that this was not the place to do that.

For many years I worked as an electronics technical author and then as a project consultant working on what were then cutting edge projects. In with SGML in 1987 when this was brand new, later involved with S1000D even authoring the Crew Module for Issue 1.7, and then conversion of documentation from unstructured to structured form.

When I retired from full time working. Mekon kindly allowed me to continue on a Part Time basis which I have also enjoyed. But now, in the late 70's age range I am about to retire completely. So for me this is a sort of signing off time.

Over time, in S1000D terms from 1.7 to 5, we have seen editing software go from cludgy to really polished, from bare bones to full of useful extra functioniality. And what do you do with the output, well that has moved from complicated and expensive applications to convert the modules into something that the end user can actually use - to software which takes data modules and allows you to produce hard copy handbooks which are almost indistinguishable from the time honoured books of yore. Also controlling software from very expensive very coplicated CSDB type applications to slick and easy to use applicatitons. And checking your modules against the Business Rules and getting something sensible in a report that makes it easy to see any deviation.

At Mekon the range of applications has grown. Over the years Mekon has prided itself on the support that it provides for its clients always bending over backwards to really help (not something that can be said about some other software houses).

So thank you to those who have provided feedback. Thank you to those who have engaged in mainly interesting discussions about S1000D. May S1000D go from strength to strength.

More Small Apps for S1000D Users

2019-11-26T09:09:00.000+00:00

Not long ago I indicated that Mekon had introduced a number of standalone applications which makes working with parts of the S1000D Specification a little less painful. Then I introduced the Assisted DDN creation and Assisted IPD creation tools. This time I am introducing two more:

Publication Module Generator
BREX Checker

Publication Module Generator

There are an increasing number of projects that require a Publication Module as one of the deliverables. Some CSDB applications provide this facility as part of the functionality. But as we have often discussed, for a large numbers of Technical Publication Sub-contractors the cost of a CSDB is outside the budget. To provide a means of creating a Publication Module Mekon has introduced a Standalone Application. Currently it only works with Issue 4+ Data Modules but with the increasing user base being limited to these Issues of S1000D this, for some, is not a problem.

There are several publication content requirements provided by the S1000D Specification which are related to publication types. These can be used to provide a guide to the structure and content required for a specific task. In the S1000D Specification these types of publications are referred to as Information Sets and information is provided for Air Specific and Land/Sea specific content and structures (Chapter 5.3 of S1000D Specification).
In more recent times Aircraft Industries Association (AIA) has released a specification for the iSpec CMP documents.

The Publication Module Generator can work with any of these requirements. It is provided with templates for the AIA work.

Population of the Publication module can either be Data Module-by-Data Module or in bulk determined by the user. Of course once the Data Modules have been imported they will need to be rearranged within the application to give the required structure. The attributes of the PMEntry elements can be edited to agree with the requirements of the specific specification.

BREX Checker

Having created the data modules for a specific project it is important to be sure that the deliverable conforms to the project business rules. These rules should be in two forms:

Written document fully explaining each rule
Business Rules Exchange (BREX) module

It is often difficult to be sure that the data modules do indeed conform to the business rules and to help in this task Mekon has produce a Brex Checker application.

The user 'loads' the Brex into the checker and points the tool at an individual data module or a folder of data modules. The result is a report which details any deviation from the rules. Of course the user needs to go through the data modules one by one to correct and deviation from the rules.

The Mekon Eclipse S1000D application is provided with the necessary functionality to create both ATA and A350 CMM compliant data modules. This ability should result in a report giving the batch a clean bill of health. Currently the Eclipse application is provided with the ability for the user to conform with both the ATA and Airbus A350 rules.

Why not try these applications?

Why not contact Mekon and have a trial of these applications? Mekon can provide them with temporary licences which limit them to a short period e.g. 30 days.

Small Apps for S1000D Users

2019-09-17T11:44:00.000+00:00

Very very rarely do I ever push applications which Mekon has on its shelves but on this occasion I thought that I would flag up some useful stuff. Our clients are from a wide range of sizes from the large corporate to the much smaller one or two person band. All are equally important to us but our smaller clients often operate with a distinct disadvantage in that they cannot afford an S1000D compliant CSDB. Of course the functionality of the various CSDBs can be considerably different.

Without a CSDB there are a number of functions which have not been available to them. For a start I mention just two of them and provide just a little bit more information about them.

Assisted Data Despatch Note creation
Assisted Illustrated Parts Data creation

Assisted DDN Creation

The creation of a Data Desptach Note can be a fiddly occupation usuallly requiring the copying of filenames and then some serach and replace to get the various elements wrapped round the data. As part of the Product Improvement practice that we undertake from time to time we decided to incorporate this within our standard S1000D Editor application. Such a little thing but it makes a huge difference to the day to day running of S1000D projects.

Assisted Illustrated Parts Data Creation

I remember as if it was yesterday when the IPD data module DTD was released. At that time I was involved in a UK Navy project migrating existing parts lists into S1000D. Although we were heavily involved in S1000D Feasibility Studies for the UK MoD the powers that be would not release the DTD to us even though we were also heavily involved in S1000D specification work (even creating one of the Data Module types). I think we were horrified when we saw the DTD in a Visual DTD application. It was explained to us that it was to be a mechanism to send data from one S2000M user to another.

Is it any wonder then that the Business Rules associated with several projects that we have seen over the last three or four years have clearly stated the the Illustrated Parts Data Module should not be created by hand.

So what do you do? You create a standalone application which enables you to create the IPD Data Module using an enhanced output from a parts data base The enhanced output is a spreadsheet file of the parts data. All databases can output spreadsheet files as a report on a table.

Mekon has provided a short series of videos which show how this application works.

Mekon also have a similar application for the ATA iSpec2200 Illustrated Parts List specification.

More Missing Bits

2019-04-02T08:44:00.004+00:00

Following on from the previous Blog about missing bits I have recently discovered another Element that is not always where it was in the past. In fact it has been removed from the Procedural Module. The, some love it, Element - Caption Group.

I was doing some in depth testing recently and tried to check out its operation in a procedural data module. I had just tested a descriptive data module with the caption group. But although caption text was available there was no caption group. Is this an accidental omission or is it omitted as the result of a request I wonder?

Caption Group

This element is no longer in the procedural data module schema. When this structure was first conceived it was to assist in the production of Crew documents to show indicator mimic panels are various states in the various procedures. When this first sstructure saw the light of day it was denigrated - why on earth would anyone want this structure. Over time an increasing number of people found that it made certain indicator and control displays very easy to mimic without the need for an illustrator to create this as a graphic. Those people found the added advantage that the author could update it very easily.

The structure rapidly migrated to several of the other data module types.

The structure of this element was chosen so that it was possible to 'modify' the way an editor (or output device) used the standard CALS table model. Again in the beginning structure was limited to the Crew Data Module it was fairly quickly migrated to a number of other Data Module Types. There were, I understand, heated discussions on the use of this Table Model. Perhaps the discussion reflected the composition of the committee that 'ran' S1000D and its development. Although I was the one who came up with the original Crew structure in General and the Caption Group in particular I only heard about its adoption and migration.

Should it return

Perhaps the discussion should now be "Should it be returned to its previous location".
Although I now spend most of my time in a support role with Authors at the coal face I rarely get to see any significant body of documentation, particularly in the current environment where so much material created in the US has had the ITAR stamp put on it.

ITAR

This is a very interesting subject.

Many years ago I was tasked with the job of converting a standard, desk top, manual switch unit used by thousands of offices throughout the UK (and further afield) to redirect telephone calls to desk telephones. The original handbook was a soft cover 20 page or so publication. Uncomplicated, using off the shelf components in a fairly simple case.

The book was reformatted into a ministry type publication and immediately had a Restricted Security rating placed on it. Despite several attempts to remove this classification, it retained the classification to the end.

It strikes me that the ITAR concept is more or less in this mindset. I have heard of several sets of Data Modules which have been written on this side of the Atlantic for fairly uncontroversial items of equipment which have been included in US DoD (and civilian) publications and have ITAR placed on them. Even the people who wrote them in the first place are not now allowed to view them. Indeed we have created a 'Scrambler' so that we are able to fault diagnose problems which have occurred.

So. A simple question......
Does this make sense
or
Is it overkill?

Missing Bits

2019-03-05T09:53:00.002+00:00

Over the years the S1000D Specification has gained quite a few additional features which have in the main been useful. Granted some of the features have been questionable and some in the community have wondered where the ideas have come from or even why they have been added.

Level Attribute

Some of you may remember that I have mentioned that the very useful attributes Level was removed when Issue 4 of the Spec was released. The fact that this attribute was removed tended to indicate that those on the steering committee had never worked in a small company where very few had a CSDB to manage their Data Modules.

To recap: The Level attribute was provided to indicate the Issue Number that a Data Module was changed. This was extremely important as the original intention was that the Data Module should contain a complete record of changes. This deemed necessary in the event of any investigations which may have been needed if there had been an incident. By metaphorically picking up a Data Module and looking at it an investigator would be able to see what changes had been made and when.

With the steering committee comprising more management types the link between the 'small' maintainer and the big companies was lost. In addition, the skills of those who were involved in implementing the specification were not up to the more professional programmer.

I do know that from an early time an influential member of the steering team decided to strip out all historical information. I know that there were repeated attempts to get the Level attribute returned to the specification, to no avail.

The level attribute was very useful in the publication of books using systems which kept track of changes to the data modules. Pity that that facility has now gone.

Well, Well, Wel! - PDF Production now fixed

2018-08-20T13:28:00.001+00:00

Hot on the heels of my last blog about Microsoft breaking how FrameMaker prouduces PDF file I can now report that the latest Windows Update on my machine has fixed the problem.

On Thursday last week when I shut my machine down I noticed that there was a windows updated in the offing. So, full of anticipation, I started my machine this morning and immediately went to FrameMaker 11 to produce a pdf file of an S1000D Data Module from the Bike Pack.

I have not been dissappointed.

I can now produce PDF files with the earlier versions of FrameMaker. I only intended to try FM11 and FM12 however,on the strength of those findings I installed our S1000D application on FrameMaker 7.2 (yes we have some clients sitll using this version) and I am pleased to report that that venerable application also produces PDF files.

I hope that our friends at Microsoft don't introduce another little problem like that.

Thank you Microsoft for fixing the problem. Also thank you Adobe for letting us have patches for the two latest versions of FrameMaker.

Windows Update and FrameMaker

2018-08-14T14:01:00.002+00:00

Some of you who are using Windows 10, and I understand that this is an increasing number, may have been afflicted by the Windows Update in June this year.

FrameMaker is an application which is much used in the Technical Publications industry. In it unstructured form this has been in use for many years mainly because its design enables large publications to be written and published. The functionality allows for the document to divided into separate files which can then be brought together via a 'Book'. This allows cross referencing across the whole book, updating of variables, and printing as a complete publication, usually through the excellent PDF output mechanism. With the advent of SGML and XML the functionality was increased to handle this markup method so with the advent of S1000D what better tool to use when it has been configured correctly to handle the numerous data module types now available (Issue 1 change 6 through to Issue 4.2).

Imagine the alarm and consternation when we discovered that the June Windows 10 update introduced a 'bug' which prevented FrameMaker from printing to PDF. An increasing number of reports of the FrameMaker message "Cannot print because the selected default printer is not compatible with FrameMaker (Cannot query escape 768.)" I understand that there was a problem in getting Microsoft to understand that there was actually a problem. The July Windows 10 Update has come and gone without a fix. Thankfully Adobe did some work on this and had provided patches for its last two FrameMaker versions. That does mean and FrameMaker prior to version 2015 are still without the ability to output to pdf. This 'bug' also prevented using the alternative 'Save As PDF' option although this route did not offer the error message.

Here we are in August, waiting for the next Windows 10 Update to see if Microsoft have acknowledged that there is a problem and done something about it. Don't hold your breath!

Component Maintenance Publications

2018-05-08T14:53:00.000+00:00

In the last 12 months there have been two specifications for Component Mainteance Publications derived from S1000D Data Modules.

Airbus CDIM for the A350 Aircraft
ATA Spec 1000BR_4.2 (aka Civil Aviation Busines Rules for S1000D Issue 4.2)

Airbus CDIM for A350 aircraft.

Last year Airbus brought out their specification for creating S1000D Component Mainteancne Publication (CMP) for the A350 aircraft. Their specification clearly was designed to handle how they wished S1000D to be used for their aircaft. The requirements reflected that need and dpecified folder structure, the location of the various files, the Page Layout, the combinations of Data Modules and the generation of divider pages between topics.

I found it verhy intersting seeing how they had produced the Business Rules and the migration into their BREX. They clearly indicate how Airbus want their documents to look and feel.

Clients of ours needed to produce the CMP documents in PDF form for Airbus and we were able to help them in this regard.

The number of choices that our clients had regarding layout, what was to be displayed, and the structure were much reduced which made the cratiion of an application very much easier. Compared with our standard building programme which has umpteen options regarding what is dispalyed and where it is located, and even the structure the A350 building programme is a considerable sawn down affair. As long as the client gets the files in the right place and has the attributes set to the right values building the publkication is very much a single button operation.

Incorporating the Brex into our Editing programme was interesting and testing was even moer interesting. Going througbh the Brex step by step to check is an omission was handled correctly was a real test on the knowledge of where the various elements were located in the schema.

ATA Spec 1000BR_4.2

We were wondering if ATA would come up with an all can do CMP specificatio and they have. The ATA Spec 1000BR_4.2. This is very much a more general set of Business Rules as one would have expected, i.e. A350 Specific against any Aircraft using S1000D Data Modules.

Having been through the Brex incorporation process onece it was interesting to see what differences there were. As expected there were a not that many. It was also interesting to see how the BREX had been written which only confirmed what we had already thought - more than one way of doing it!

We did notice that there were a few problems with the BREX, mainly in inconsistencies. One example was where the rule specifically stated that an element was not to be used but the explanation indicated that it should. Incorporating this Brex into our Editing programme took less time as a result of our prior experience. Testing was just as interesting - find out where an element should have been if it was not excluded.

Just for fun and learning opening one of the Bike Pack data modoules with the ATA Business rules switched in to see how long it took to get it compliant gave an insight into what was going to be invovled for a company creating standard S1000D DMs and converting them to ATA. To be honest it was not that painful and didn't take that long - but that was only one DM and not hundreds.

BREX Checker

What has come out of this is the need for a Brex checker which would work natively with S1000D Brex data modules. I was amazed at the speed at which this worked, even on a folder full of files. Of course the interpreting the report is an acquired skill and it remains to be seen whether the average auhor will be happy to do this or is a nominated person going to be given the job.

A report from one of our clients indicates that the delivered data modules are not always looked at by the same person at athe other end. This has resulted in Data Modules tavelling backwards and forwards with different comments each time. We had no way of knowing what was being used for checking.

Oveall the use of S1000D for comercial aircraft is reaching an interesting stage but where a company is providing S1000D Data Modules for both military and commercial aircraft there could be conflicts especially where different companies are involved - after all an aircraft power supply (just an example and not real life to us) is likely to be used on many aircraft.

Working with Warnings and Cautions

2016-10-11T13:51:00.000+00:00

Way back When

We have just been involved in the handling of Warnings and Cautions and what was being asked for set the OGCs (Old Grey Cells) grinding away trawling up the early days of S1000D. To be precise Issue 1.6 (Change 6 as it was known then). I remember that the UK MoD spent quite a time looking at just what should happen when a Warning was being used.

Lets put on one side the IETM action on being shown a Warning. Although the method determined on was a bit of a contentious issue with the end users it was the only way to make sure that it was put in front of them. Whether they read them is, of course, another matter.

The mechanics were that one referenced a Warning in a Data Module and each warning should be located in a separate Data Module. Indeed the DefStan group created quite a number of special Hazard Warnings and Cautions which were related to specific situations. The mechanism was straightforward. Reference a warning/caution and it was brought up in front of the user. Each Warning or Caution was in its own Data Module. Easy! Easy to find and easy to modify.

Now

OK, so I know that you don't have to use everything that is provided within S1000D, but who thought up the 'latest mechanism' I wonder. You know, the one which stuffs all the warnings in one or more repository files which then has to be referenced (file and warning id) which is then inserted on the fly.
We have two problems here as far as I can see.

You have a file which contains theoretically hundreds of warnings. So when it needs updating first work out which file contains the one that you need to change and then find it in the file itself.
Just how easy it is to share the warnings between projects?

By having a single warning in a data module the question of updating is much easier, and the ability to share with other projects is also easier.

The question of sharing Data Modules form me was addressed very early. When I was working for another company we had the MoD project manager for a large item of equipment visit us. He has been told that all the legacy Data Modules for some of the equipment which was common across many platforms had to be converted to the latest issue at that time. The reason was that the different issues were incompatible. We were able to demonstrate within 10 minutes that we could create an IETM using Data Modules from the three issues available at that time and they worked perfectly well. So if this is being held up as the reason for the new system it doesn't wash.

Scrutiny

A lot of the problems which occur due to changes which have not, from the end users point of view, been thought out. In a modified system this problem could very easily be solved by making available to a wider audience the proposed changes before they became 'caste in stone'. It is very easy to place a time limit on the 'consultation' period. I realise that this time would perhaps delay the publication of new issues but overall that would be time well spend.

I know that I did mention this mechanism and pointed to the W3C way of working as a possible solution a long time ago. It is certainly a lot easier and quicker than a British or any other standard institution mechanism.

The last time there was deathly silence so I suppose that the same will happen again.

The Spread of S1000D

2016-09-01T14:03:00.000+00:00

Several Years Ago

Several years ago, to be honest more years ago than I care to think about, my job was as a Radio Officer in the Merchant Navy. My observation then was that it was a good job that my training had been very much hands on with the current equipment of the day because the handbooks provided for pretty well everything that came within my sphere of interest (pretty well everything electronic) were awful. After a couple of years I went on a course for a new and improved radar and those handbooks were even more dire than the ones in use at the time.

As far as I could see the Engineers were in the same boat, so to speak. They were all time served apprentices in Marine Engineering who had converted to Seagoing Marine Engineers gaining their 'Tickets' at sea. They did not need handbooks to tell them about their 30 ft High 6 cylinder, vertically opposed, turbocharged, Doxford Marine Diesel. They had been in the Doxford yard and built them. Their documentation was limited to copies of the manufacturing drawings.

And when I came ashore and moved into technical documentation I sort of thought that there had to be a better class of Handbook. Ones that were not riddled with errors, with the information presented in a way that it was very easy to find the bit that was the focus at that time. In other words documentation that was not so dense that it did not take ages to find out what you wanted to know

A bit later

A bit later I got involved in proposing a handbook system for a large Multi-site mining machine manufacturing company. They had several types of mining machinery which could be manufactured in any one of five or six sites around the world. Each machine was made up of several modules with a high degree of commonality and each site was responsible for one or more of these modules. So what to do about handbooks.

The company had a very fast inter-site network so the concept of using S1000D with the CSDB at one location was almost a no-brainer. The handbooks could be put together as required using the Publication Module which could then be 'Published' as and when required by any of the sites.

Well? No, they did not go down that route choosing instead to use Dita. By the time they realised that it might not have been a good choice for their particular project it was too late and they were committed.

I have always been a keen advocate of S1000D for a lot of projects, particularly now that the software required has become well established, and in most cases reasonably priced. I guess that one of the reasons why take up has not been so rapid is because when a novice picks up the Specification they loose the will to live. They do not realise that they don't need all of it to have a really good system up and running fairly quickly.

Recently

Very recently I have been involved in the latest issue of the Shipdex specification. A full circle so to speak. A specification which is for use in the marine environment which is now at Issue 3. Very much a set of Business Rules which sit on top of S1000D the requirements are straighforward and relatively easy to understand. There are some formatting changes (to be expected of course) and some specific use of attributes (which don't get in the way of S1000D).

It is very refreshing to see the emergence of this specification. I don't know how common its use is but even if it is just starting its use should be encouraged.

Any others?

Of course this begs the question. Are there any other non-military/aerospace projects which are using S1000D?

A new S1000D Blog Reader Poll

2016-07-19T13:24:00.002+00:00

Up to Now

In my last blog I summarised what the S1000D Blog Readers Poll had recorded. It set me thinking that what had been recorded before was ok but things needed to move on.

When the poll was started most users were working with only one S1000D Issue. We have come to see from our clients that they are increasingly working with two or more Issues, both SGML and XML.

Similarly when the poll was started very few of the smaller clients were working with CSDBs. There were not many of them and those that were available were very expensive and most smaller companies just did not have the need/cash for them nor could they justify the cost.
Things have moved on and now there are several which are configured to work with S1000D. And some have come down in price.

And Now!

To reflect the change in the use of S1000D, and the experiences of the practitioners, I have created a new survey. The original list of S1000D issues is there but it is now multiple-choice. There is the original yes/no answer to Are you using a CSDB? However the question is now there asking which one is being used. And if you are and it is not one of the above then there is a Question to enable you to put in your own flavour.

I hope that all will now regard this as a new poll which reflect more of todays working environment.

Why has it taken so long?

A good question. The simple answer is that the original Poll was constructed using the well known Quibblo facilities and I did honestly try to extend/modify the original poll to meet today's requirement. I have the username and password safe and used them. But there is a Captcha field which did not work which meant that I could not get back into my account.

So I have been forced to create a new poll using SurveyMonkey. Not quite so nice an interface but at least I was able to create an account, create the poll and then put it on the Blog site.

The Last Count - the survey

2016-05-31T12:12:00.004+00:00

I first started the short survey in 2010 and it is very interesting to see how usage has changed over the years. So I thought that a quick look at it right now might be useful.

April 2016

The survey results as of April 2016 are very nicely shown in graphical form below (generated by the survey site). Apologies for the fact that they spread into the right hand column - one of the limitations of the Blog Layout.

Issues of S1000D

We will look at the progression of taking on board S1000D but it is very clear that there is now a larger take up of Issue 4. I suppose with a number of US Projects using S1000D we should expect that. I do know that some of the Issue 1 Change 6 data is still in current use and being (more or less regularly) updated.

CSDB Usage

When this question was first posed the majority of people were not using a CSDB at all. However now that is changing. Of course this was a very crude yes or know answer. Perhaps we will do something a little more granular for this in the near future.

Where Responses Came From

One of the features of the survey is that we can get an outline view of where people were when they responded to the questions and how many there were. This is interesting because it, in some small way, illustrates the spread of the Specification in documentation.

Quite a spread I think that you will agree. I find the entry from 'translate.googleusercontent.com' intriguing.

S1000D Usage

Of course what the survey does not take into account is 'How many different Issues of S1000D is each person using?'

As products get more mature one question is: are projects keeping the existing documentation in the original Issue or is it all being converted to a later Issue? This is an interesting question of course because some of the earlier Issue of S1000D are SGML only. Where SGML and XML is available for the same Issue converting to XML is very straightforward with off the shelf software (with a bit of knowhow of course). Where the company originating the information is the one making the decisions that is ok.

Where the company wanting to make changes is not the originalting one that is not ok without explicit instructions - even then it is doubtful. Who is going to sign QA document which says that the converted material reflects exactly the source material? A few years ago there was an issue locally where a company decided that they would convert some legacy Data Modules into a more recent Issue. Having been involved on the periphery of the origination of the first version I pointed out that the company did not have the right to convert, the material did not belong to them particuarly. I am not sure how popular I was at that point but it did raise the issue with them of who had the right to change or update the material contained in the Data Modules.

I hope that the larger companies are a bit better behaaved than my example. That time they were gung ho in their attitude to data ownership.

Updating the End User

2016-03-14T10:58:00.001+00:00

Updating our Users

Over the years it has become increasingly noticeable that our end users just don't get to know the capabilities of our software. In many cases they have been creating and editing S1000D Data Modules for years and don't know that there are features which would greatly speed up their production and possibly increase the accuracy and convenience of their task.

Of course we provide a comprehensive User Guide which includes instructions for not only what the software does but how to use some of the Data Module types.

If, as is the case for a large number of our users, they are familiar with our products, they just don't know what has been added. It is often the case that unless they are reporting an unrelated problem and we have a conversation with them to find out how they are finding our application that they hear about feature updates.

Let’s be honest about this, most authors are being pushed to up their output and do not have time to look at the user guide. I must admit that my wife is often nagging me to change my general view of “if all else fails read the handbook”. There is often the case, particularly for one of our productivity features, the person who installed the software has not ticked the box to make it available to the user.

Perhaps I need to mention that a lot of the new features that we introduce have been suggested by our end users. We are always grateful for feedback. Our score for Customer Support in our annual survey always scores very high so we do that bit right but of course we try to improve on our performance whenever we can.

How do we grab their attention

Of course we send out emails and letters to the ‘registered’ contact in a company saying what the new release contains. In most companies that gets passed on directly to the IT department for them to download the installer and update each client machine. It is generally obvious that the recipient of the communications does not pass that on to the actual users.

IT Departments generally do not look at the installation instructions which are, in our case, included in the zip file containing the Installer. Why should they, they know all about installing software don’t they? (Sorry about the slightly sarcastic comment here!).

Software updates are not quite the same as equipment updates are they? Hardware updates are discovered when the technician has to use the handbook to fix a piece of equipment. For software the user is unlikely to see signs of an extra feature unless they are observant and notice an extra Menu option.

Help extra to the User Guide

We realise that the old adage of a picture is worth a thousand words is true. Our take on this is to make short videos available on line to demonstrate the, what were once, extra features. We keep on adding to this resource.

But how does the end user get to know about these videos? This is the same problem as finding out about the updated features isn't it?

Of course these videos may be unavailable for numbers of our users. They are sitting on a network which is very secure and has absolutely no access to the Internet. So:

Should we make these available as part of the Installer?
And if they are part of the installer should their installation be a choice?
In which case we are back to the earlier problem of what the IT Department actually installs aren’t we?

Other peoples experiences

Given that this problem must be pretty universal it would be good to know what others think.

It would be particularly good to know how end-users think that this problem can be solved.

Of course there is the old saying “you can lead a horse to water but you may not be able to get it to drink” but shall we put this problem on one side?

There does need to be a really good way to get through to the end user.

An experiment

We are about to undertake a small experiment to see if we can break the circle of not updating the end user. It looks good on paper. Only time will tell.

If it works I’ll let you know.

IETPs

2015-10-01T13:13:00.002+00:00

History

Many years ago I was involved in the design, implementation and population of a keyboard-less maintenance handbook system for a well known UK Train Manufacturer's product associated with a new set of underground trains. There were three multi-machine networked systems in different locations. Touch screens were used as the method of interacting with the handbook (a keyboard was available at one machine on each network). A table of contents (although available) was not used because navigation was entirely graphical which enabled the user to drill down to the location of the equipment to be viewed. It was quick, completely non-computer literate staff could find the knowledge that they required within seconds.

We used a very crude markup system (it was pre SGML) to populate the knowledge side of the system and cross referencing was automatically populated due to mark up in the text. Hotspots on graphics was via a proprietary graphical handling system. We had a numbering system based on the equipment breakdown so in someways it was following the ATA/S1000D principles.

The original front end concept was developed on an early Macintosh computer (large screen) which then was streets ahead of anything on the PC platforms. (Unix was discounted even though it provided a brilliant interface on various counts.) But Macintosh was not possible by the terms of the contract so that triggered a considerable search for an supplier of software that could handle graphics half-way decently.

That was then, using a DOS operating system if you remember that. (Graphics was the big thing then because then you didn't do pictures did you?) . Years later I met someone who was involved in the project from the clients point of view and he mentioned that he had not up to that point (well over 10 years later) seen anything like that system. I must admit that I have not seen anyone pushing the concept of graphical access to data - although I have heard that there are some around. A graphic front end is still not a matter of course. At each level in the graphical drill down access via screen based buttons was provided to descriptive, maintenance, ipc and fault information which made the graphical user interface even more useful and functional.

Later I was involved in an IETP project that was implemented to handle early S1000D data for the UK MoD which complied with Def Stan 00-60. This followed the S1000D arrangement which was advanced for those days.

Today

This wallowing through History sparked a discussion about how much (or how little) IETPs have progressed. Not having recently been involved in providing IETP for S1000D I thought that I had better have a quick look at what the 'Book' says about it. I remember when the specification first introduced the concept of IETP and the 'working area' and it does not appear to have changed much since it was first introduced. Chapter 6.3 of the specification provides the details of this area of information delivery.

There was a feeling that the S1000D specification was now very dated and that modern technology is capable of so much more. Modern tablets and even mobile phones provide facilities undreamed of when the specification was first written. For example:

should we design the IETP functionality to accommodate touch screens given the increasing availability of these input methods on laptops?
what about connecting to a network via wifi? I know that there is a security issue with some defence documentation but there are secure communication interfaces available to handle this - or is even this a problem?
- as a corollary to this how many handbooks are in a civilian environment where security (information wise) is a problem?
how many changes should we make to the interface? Some of the S1000D areas have been overtaken by technology.
should we allow he individual user to move bits of the interface around the display area (the concept of movable widgets - or pods in Adobe terms).
how important is it to provide local notes? In the paper days engineers always made copious margin notes.
and what about feeding these local notes back to the authoring team?
I know that there are issues about printing off information (there are places where computers are not allowed for safety reasons|) but should this be allowed to stop outdated information persisting?

These are all possible now, er actually not just possible be ridiculously easy to implement.

The future

The MD of a previous company that I worked for had a pretty good abbreviation: WIBNI (Wouldn't It Be Nice If). He used this to get a discussion going about what should we be looking at 6 months, 12 months, 2 years hence. This simple phrase sparked very interesting discussions.

Given that all the above is possible I suppose we have to ask what should we be looking at to provide IETPs for the future. A genuine WIBNI. But should the WIBNI take into account the desirability of some of the features. Of course the design of the IETP UI originally was in the hands of a committee with very little reference to the end user. This begs the question whether or not the UI that they designed actually suited the end user.

So in the sense of genuine interest and some sort of general discussion

what do you think that the UI should be like?
should we give the end user the ability to move the various parts of the UI around to suit him/her?
should the entry system to the IETP be Graphical?
should the end user be able to enter his own notes which remain un-moderated (always possible that the note is not factually correct)?
the above are just three simple questions (although I do realise that some are contentious), what else should be put into the mix when considering IETPs and their UI.

It will be interesting to see if there are any responses to these questions or any further comments and suggestions. Please don't be shy in coming forward.

Windows 10

2015-09-08T14:18:00.000+00:00

No doubt some of you like me have had a nag pop up trying to persuade you to update your windows to the latest and best i.e. Windows 10. The update was completely free. This offer does not apply to those of us whose work machines are on a Domain. However, my home machine is not on a domain and, having been quite happy with the free upgrades first to Windows 8 and then 8.1, and against the advice of my son (a Microsoft Qualified Engineer - but what does he know?) I thought that I would take the plunge.

I had a look around to see if thee was anything serious about the installation and of course there were various comments in the press about the installation not going well without being specific. I had also heard that there were some areas of Windows which were just not there. But I was installing on my Home machine so if the worst came to the worst then I could go back. I must also admit that part of my decision was so that I could test our software out on a more or less bog standard machine like most of our clients have.

With Windows 8 we discovered that some aspects of Windows Security had changed. We overcame that but that does not appear to be a problem with Windows 10.

However there have been changes. It looks as if the 32 bit and 64 bit versions do not handle some .dlls is not the same.same. I am currently waiting for a fix so that I can give our applications a thorough testing to make sure all will be well by the time our clients recieve the updated Eclipse applications. Of course I am hoping that once installed the testing will go like a well oiled machine and there will not be any problems. But that is what testing is for isn't it?

It looks as if the software that was already installed on my machine still works which includes a very useful programme called VNC which enables me to effortlessly remotely control my home machine from my works machine. This is so useful when testing our publishing application for S1000D as it enables me to keep an eye on my home machine while it is running a test.

And what do I think about Windows 10 so far. Well I am still getting used to where things are but it looks good to me. It is faster even than 8.1 on my home machine.

S1000D IPD Generation

2015-08-06T14:16:00.001+00:00

As, no doubt, those of you who need to create S1000D IPDs will know, creating and editing this type of Data Module is not easy at all.

Legacy Conversion

A good few years ago I was involved in a project to convert loads of Handbooks into a very early version of S1000D (1.6 actually). There were quite a number of pages of parts list to be converted from hard copy. Some of these parts lists extended to thirty pages or so - so what to do.

As most of you probably know the IPD structure is not the easiest to work with. I remember that most of us were horrified when we saw the DTD and I also remember the various comments which were articulated when we were told that the structure was for the transfer of data between databases - not complimentary is putting it mildly. In those days the majority of Data Module creation was done by Technical Publication contractors who, in the most part, did not have the skills required to handle this type of structure.

At that time the scanning and ocr process was pretty well sorted but the next stage of getting this data into an IPD, without pain, was another story altogether. About the only way then was to get the data into a word file and process the table with a template which contained Visual Basic code. I am happy to report that this was pretty good with the IDStatus area of the Data Module being entered via a series of drop down selection fields. For the time this productivity tool was very effective for what it was designed for.

What about today

Today there are a number of our clients who do not have the luxury of a S2000D compliant database which, of course, is supposed to export IPDs to order taking care of the IDStatus area of the Data Module. A number of these clients mostly have the parts list provided to them by their client in a spreadsheet form which is part way there (at least the data is in electronic form).

So we are left with looking for something that will take the pain out of generating IPD Data modules. And very recently I have been playing with just such an application.

The Painless Way

As most of you know I don't usually push products from Mekon, I believe that this blog should be more about the S1000D Environment and Community covering problems discovered, tips, helpful advice, and, OK, Moans. But in this instance I think we have a great standalone application that can really take the pain away from this job.

The process is easy:-

Take a spreadsheet containing the parts list data (with column headings),
Above the parts list data in the spreadsheet add important information such as

Data Module code,
Issue number,
date,
Illustration information

Map the location of the various items of data to the schema elements and attributes in an IPD Builder which has a very easy mapping function (this can be saved in a 'mapping file')
Then press the build button.
The result is a perfectly formed IPD Data Module.
If you forget something important you will get a pop-up window to enter the data during the build process (you can modify the mapping file to correct this).

If you add the extra information into the same location as the first spreadsheet you can keep on running it to get your IPD data modules. Different spreadsheet layouts can be accommodated by having different mapping files (which you have created). Where there is more than one item in a spreadsheet field some straightforward additional scripting language is provided to accommodate this problem.

S1000D and DITA

2014-10-20T08:40:00.002+00:00

Do You Remember?

I don't know if you remember, was it earlier this year or last(?), that there was a flurry of activity around the topic of S1000D and DITA. A group of people had decided that the way to go was to create a DITA which conformed to S1000D.

The presentation was very interesting and, no doubt for some, it was the next exciting thing coming along for the Publications Industry. But for some of us it just didn't have it - and no this is not sour grapes. This topic has come to mind because of training courses that I have run for some clients of ours this year, both face to face and remotely via the internet.

I am not unfamiliar with DITA because:

Our company has a core of DITA specialists
Adobe FrameMaker can be used to handle DITA projects
Adobe FrameMaker comes ready for DITA out of the box.

So given the above why is it that I am not sure that DITA S1000D (or S1000D DITA?) is the way to go.

Why not?

Well, it is my observation that certainly the newbies (sorry but it is not meant to be a derogatory term) to S1000D Authoring have enough to cope with using all the features out of the box. This also applies to those who have been involved in S1000D for some time and who are experienced in that area. Quite often we get questions like:

Do we have to use all these different types of Data Modules?
Do we have to use this new Technical Information Repository stuff?
Do we have to use all these elements?

Of course the answer to all of the above is a resounding NO unless, that is, you are unfortunate to be a Technical Publications Contractor working for one or two of the companies that are insisting on using all the bells and whistles. The majority of users and main contractors/design authorities are not using a number of the extra and most recent features.

So when it comes to DITA and the ability to extend the functionality using specialisms it just leaves them cold. They have no notion or need to learn all sorts of extra stuff. The basic S1000D is quite good enough.

Listening to the guys in the presentation they were clearly very enthusiastic about it. They had be nurturing this arm of S1000D and were very familiar with all the nuances.

It is not just the newbies that don't want to go down that route. My chats with experienced S1000D Authors reflect the same attitude as those not very familiar with S1000D.

In one thread that I read there was the admission that "Both S1000D and DITA can be intellectually challenging to deploy and authoring S1000D data modules by assembling DITA chunks could add an additional layer of unnecessary complexity to your project." I think that this is probably an understatement.

So where are we?

A recent search of published material on the subject produced a very interesting result. There was a lot of information prior to 2010 and not so much post 2010.

Internally within Mekon we came to the conclusion some time ago that if a project was based on part numbers and had a long life then S1000D was the solution and we have seen nothing to change our view on that. If the project is software based (and other sort of related areas of work) then DITA may be the answer.

This was also the view of a presentation given in 2014 (DITA and S1000D Different verses to the same song?) where there was a flowchart included in the presentation. This is the last bit of the flowchart is shown here and I think that it shows that the Mekon view is, on balance, still right.

Overall there is the problem of having something that is well documented to work with. S1000D fills that criteria (well almost - having just spent some time trying to find something specific in the spec and failing) and all who use it know what is required of them. Some of the more recent additions are not really necessary and you can tailor the specification to meet your need - and this is allowed within the rules.

I'm NOT a Luddite

I am not a Luddite - honest!. I will (and am happy to), and have embraced new features, technologies etc. when and where they enhance the working environment of those people who have to document a whole range of projects and deliver the information to the end user in the best way for them. After all the maintenance and technical guys are our customers - the guys who use the information we write to do their work.

As evidence to my remark about not being a Luddite - I was the innovator who designed and delivered a touch screen handbook system for a complete train to a large London Based transport organisation in the early 1990's. Navigation was by means of graphics and this was before the days of Windows - so much easier now. (As an aside I met someone last year who knew what we were doing who commented "They are still not doing what we did then are they?")

So, I do ask the 'Innovators' to have pity on the technical authors who just want to do their job by using easy to use software configured to work with S1000D and not have to invent extra bits when they think that something extra is needed. S1000D works well, it has been around for a number of years now and has become reasonably robust (excluding the odd hiccough of course). Technical Authors (or Communication Operatives as I saw the occupation advertised) in the S1000D arena, even those just embarking on the journey do find most of S1000D Logical and relatively easy to employ in their day to day work.

Of course you may not agree. Bet you that there are a number that don't - always the way!

S1000D Events in 2014

2014-03-17T10:25:00.000+00:00

The general S1000D environment seems to be picking up. We have noticed an increased activity regarding enquiries for our Software and general communications about more recent issues of S1000D than Issue 2+. This has also become apparent in interest in S1000D events.

UK Based

Here in the UK the Congility event is going to take place on June 19th and 20th in Crawley with pre-conference workshops on the 18th.

In the past these Congility events have been very well received and the feedback around the S1000D material has been of high quality. Of course part of attending these events is not only the presentations but the networking that goes on. Over the years old acquaintances have been seen as well as those new to S1000D. I think that it is in the latter area that Congility is so good, people are very happy and indeed keen, to share their knowledge and experience. S1000D will be more quickly adopted in the civilian sector with the mystique removed. Your will need to have a look at the programme to see which days you need to attend because as in the past it is a Joint DITA and S1000D programme.

No doubt you will remember me waxing on about just how good S1000D is for a wide range of non-defence projects and in these days of globalisation of development and manufacture, and the increasing use of common parts, S1000D is the obvious choice for many of these.

One big stumbling block that we have come across is the management of projects. Expensive engineers being used to produce the maintenance documentation in MS Word (oh yes!) instead of using an industrial strength standard on a choice of several platforms with guaranteed reliability and re-use with Authors doing the work. But that is a perennial problem which has been running for years and years and is likely to take many more years until it has become a miniscule problem with a small handful of companies.

So for those in the UK and wondering if you should dip your toe in the S1000D world and with an increasing confidence in the future, see if you can get funding to visit Congility and quickly ramp up your knowledge and confidence.

You can find out more about this by visiting the Congility website at www.congility.com but I will keep an eye on the programme and find out more details and let you know items of interest.

In the US

In the recent past S1000D and ATA have go in bed together to present a single conference which covers the AeroSpace industry. This year is no exception. We have the ATA e-Business Forum and S1000D User Forum taking place in San Antonio, Texas from June 23 to 25, 2014. their byline is Driving Value Through Effective Information Sharing and this is definitely what happens there. The programme is not so advanced as that for Congility but generally they manage to put on an informative set of presentations with a number of the S1000D influential members taking part or attending.

When I find out what is being presented I will update you but in the meantime you can have access to the programme as it is at present by going to the User Forum.

Congility S1000D Has Passed

2013-07-08T16:38:00.000+00:00

It does not feel like it was two weeks ago that we had the Congility S1000D Conference is Crawley.

After the first session there were two tracks which meant of course that I could not see all the presentations. But follows some impression of those that I did manage to get to.

Here is the first a a small number of Blogs on my impressions - starting of course at the beginning......

Opening Session - S1000D Direction (given by Dennis Hoyland)

In his usual style Dennis gave us a very good short history of the S1000D specification taking up to the here and new. Having been involved with S1000D in its early AECMA days through to today he is very well placed to provide this useful reminder of why the specification was so necessary then, and of course why it is still.

The current organisational tree was discussed. This really shows just what a wide range of organisations and people are involved in the ongoing development of the Specification - it is certainly not standing still. He reminded us that it is important to be involved. Unlike a number of other Specifications there are not full time employees working on the upkeep - all of the participants are holding down increasingly challenging jobs in addition to this voluntary work.

From History to the Future was covered with a very useful view of the direction of the Specification development and its interaction with other S specifrications which are being managed by ASD. Considering that Issue 1 Change 6 formed a central part of the Def Stan 00-60 specification with its links to LSAR 1388 and S2000M (and the Tri-service approach at that time) it is good to see taht this interoperability is being pursued.

Dennis followed this by flagging up some personal goals for the specification which clealy has necissitated some changes in the way that the Specification has been grown. His last slide showed a very good summary which is worth sharing.

We are learning from the lessons of the past
We will:

Change process
Develop modularisation
Develop a detailed plan
Fix Issue dates
Develop packages of work to be incorporated when finished

Can we get the presentations?

Yes! The slides from the presentations are available for download from the Agenda section of the Congility S1000D site

Congility S1000D is only a couple of months away

2013-04-18T14:16:00.000+00:00

The Programme is Ready

Have you noticed just how quickly time passes by. It is now about two months to the "Congility S1000D" conference and the programme is now finalised and it promises to be of the usual high standard.
My contacts with clients, and prospective clients, has highlighted several areas of interest and concern which may well originate from a lack of knowledge on their part. Let me give you just four examples:

Applicability
Practical Business Rules and its relation to the BREX
Legacy Conversion
The path from an LSA to S1000D

It is not my intention here to give chapter and verse of these topics but just to highlight the fact that the conference has got these covered.

Applicability

The topic of Applicabiity has been of interest for several years and over this time S1000D's model has got more sophisticated. The latest incarnation in Issue 4.1 does look to provide a number of examples which are relevant to the larger projects with multiple platform versions and extended number of modifications and service bulletins. Jeff Deskin of Corena has knowledge of these problems as a result of his work with the Life*S1000D CSDB which has the capability of handling this area of the Specification

Practical Business Rules and its relation to the BREX

Business Rules is an area of the S1000D Specification which is at the focus of considerable work. Some of you will have noticed changes in the Specification which help to focus the users attention of things that should be considered when working on a project. The work is ongoing but it is always useful to have a real life project view of this area. Lundqvist of Saab will enlighten us in this area. I know that a number of the S1000D Business Rules Technical Team will be there to have their brains picked if you have further questions.

Legacy Conversion

Ever since my involvement in S1000D as part of the early Def-Std 0060 days the subject of Legacy Conversion has been raised. There is a fair amount of material still in other formats, structured and unstructured, which may or may not be worth considering for conversion. To convert or not to convert is the first question quickly followed by the question: "how are we going to do it". In the early days I devised scripting to convert Formatted Word files into S1000D Data Modules. If the original had been written using the styles provided the conversion was very good and extremely rapid. Of course sometimes conversion was not 100%, but naturally often the original was not 100% perfect. This topic is being covered by Adrian Jordan (Mekon) and Graham Every (Graham Every Ltd) who have experience in this area. Go pick their brains as well.

The path from an LSA to S1000D

In the dim and distant days of Def-Stan 0060 the link between the LSA(R) and S1000D was built in (as was the link to S2000M). The problem was that the basic LSA Specification (1388 I seem to remember) needed some work to make it really suitable for migration of data into S1000D Data Modules. Not an easy task.
Things move on and Peter Zimmerman of Cassidian is going to be discussing just this problem and the ASD methodology to achieve this migration using S10003X and S3000L.

Are You Ready?

I hope that you will be able to be at the conference. As in most examples of good conferences the bonus feature is the ability to have meaningful conversations with other Professionals in the same area of work. S1000D is still a foreign word in a lot of places and it can feel isolating to be working in this area.

In these hard times networking (sorry about that word) with others working in the S1000D area can be a very good investment in both time and money. Hopefully we will see you there.

Congility S1000D 2013 - Now open for business

2013-03-14T14:18:00.002+00:00

Not long ago I mentioned that the Congility Conference programme was taking shape with topics being matched to speakers and vice versa.

Rather then give you another list of subjects etc. that are going to be covered let me invite you to access the Congility site direct and have a browse round.

In the past these Congility conferences (including the X-Pubs flavour) have been well attended and the quality of the speakers has been second to none.

The Congility S1000D 2013 site can be accessed directly via this link. You will see that there is an 'Early Bird' offer if you book before the 1st May.

In addition to the quality programme there will also be a good number of vendors who have products and/or services associated with S1000D - perhaps a chance to ask those awkward questions, or just to have a chat and find out more about the supplier.

Perhaps to give you some ammunition to persuade your Management that it is important that you attend, why not access the 2011 Conference Archive. From this source you will see the quality of the information being presented.

Congility S1000D 2013 - Post 2

2013-02-25T09:34:00.000+00:00

Following on from my previous Blog entry about the Congility Conference I have to report that the programme is progressing well with a number of speakers confirmed.

The programme content is such that there are going to be two streams which take effect after the opening sessions.

The Key Note Address will cover the direction that the S1000D Specification is taking and will be Given by Dennis Hoyland who is chair of the S1000D Steering Committee and this will be followed by the important subject of Mod Policy and Direction. At the time of writing this the presenter has not been confirmed but it will be a significant person from the MoD.

An just touching on the confirmed speakers the session subjects include:

What is new in 4.1
Simplified Technical English in a Real Project (No theory here!)
For those involved in Training we have an Introduction into SCORM
For those moving current data to S1000D we have Legacy Data Conversion
And for those with long running projects we have Applicability in S1000D

There are also a number of very useful and practical subjects for which the speakser have yet to confirm their involvement.

At the moment the programme is not on the Congility web site but be sure, as soon as it is published I will pass this on.

This conference is clearly very important for the S1000D community in Europe. With the current state of the economy (and in the recent past as well) the money just has not been there to travel to the US where most of the related conferences take place. Most technical publications departments never had the cash to send delegates to the states and also a significant number of vendors have had to dig really deep to get someone to them.

With the Congility Conference taking place almost adjacent to Gatwick Airport just outside London this is very easy to get to from almost anywhere in the UK. This certainly makes it easier for prospective delegates to get authority to attend.

S1000D Issue 4.1 is Released

2013-02-21T16:30:00.000+00:00

The moment we have all been waiting for (well some anyway) has arrived. S1000D Issue 4.1 is released. When we downloaded it we thought that there was something missing. We were also very pleased(?) to find that the dreaded statement "Examples will be supplied at a future Issue" is not used so often

Only One Schema Version

In the Pre-Releases there was only the flat schema present, well up to the last one that is when the Master and Flat Schemas were present. So when we discovered that there was only a Flat Schema in the Release we were surprised. However we now understand that this is the way it is going to be for the foreseeable future.

I understand that this is something to do with some Editor Applications and other software not handling the re-definition of some elements very well. This was not something that affected us too much but at least it simplifies our implementation a bit.

More Example Pages

I know that the S1000D Specification is intended to be used with an IETP but a number of people that we come into contact with are indicating that for various reasons hard copy is required. The hard copy is necessary for several reasons including having the necessary information in non-electronic form in locations where computers are not allowed (e.g. Ships Magazines) and for vetting purposes where the authors do not want to provide the vetting engineers with software that will handle Data Modules Directly.

So, having noted in earlier releases that there Information codes for Data Modules such as Front Pages, List of Effective Pages, Tables of Contents etc it is almost exciting to see that we now have examples provided for us.

Granularity

When viewing the Table of Contents example which has now been provided I am struck by the Granularity Issue. The Specification intimates that there should not be any duplication of information within Data Modules yet some of the items in the example given indicates that they are not playing the game, so to speak. In looking at the titles in the list some of the Data Modules (indicated by the Data Module Code entry in the list) is a single Data Module whereas in fact I would have expected some of these topics to be made up of several much smaller titles.

This causes us a dilemma. As you may know we at Mekon have an application which concatenates Data Modules into a single chapter (chapters just like those in the S1000D spec but being made up of multiple Data Modules) so that the book appears to be much more like a 'Traditional' handbook. What do we put in the Data Module Code column of the Table of Contents?

Front Page

The example of the Front Page given in the Specification shows what elements have been used for the various displayed items. This has removed the guess work that we have sometimes had to resort to. Both Andrew and I have been involved in S1000D pretty much since before the first public issue (which was 1.6) and so we know how various parts were initially conceived which is fine for things like Procedural and Descriptive Data Modules etc. But these new pages, which include the Front Page, have had us guessing what has been discussed.

I suppose what these new definitions of page layouts will involve us in is another set of preference tick boxes to cover legacy or S1000D for some of these pages. Our main S1000D applicatin already has this facility included to encompass all the issues from 1.6 to 4.0.1 and now 4.1.

With the Front Page come some welcome indications of how other preliminary pages are to be handled. However along with those are a number of additions such as how and what to display in the Highlights and List of Effective Pages (And Data Modules). The insertion of I's, N's, R's and C's is going to make for some interesting processing decisions. We also have a choice of Tables of Contents, i.e. ordinary or hierarchical.

Service Bulletin

A welcome addition to the Specification is the provision of a Service Bulletin schema. We have a number of clients who work with iSpec 2200 and several times over the last few years we have been asked how a Service Bulletin should be handled.

Now we have a definitive answer.

What Else?

My comments above only arise because I have just put together something for a presentation. I have not yet had a look at other parts of the Specification in detail and will obviously visit the Highlights Pages to find out more about the other changes.

I was going to say 'I look forward to finding out what other changes have been effected' but I thought better of it!

Congility Conference 2013

2013-01-10T16:55:00.002+00:00

2013 is the year when there is going to be another Congility conference and as usual there is a segment of it which id devoted to S1000D. The focus this time is "The next 5 years: mastering communications in a multi-device world". A challenging title you my think given the speed of change over the past few years.

As previously, the conference is divided into two main parts:

Congility S1000D on 25th June
&
Content Agility 2013 on 26th & 27th June

Of course we in the S1000D world are particularly interested, I guess, in the first day's events. Although speakers have been booked for some sessions if you have something that fits the bill so to speak please get in touch with the organisers.
As usual the topics include:

S1000D and the ASD suite of specs
Business Rules
The Software Selection process
Addressing legacy data

Through these we will learn of the latest features of each topic and even perhaps help focus on the next area of development.

Is it worth coming to the conference? I guess it has to be a resounding YES judging by the feedback comments from Congility 2011, yes it really was that long ago. One of the comments that I thought was particularly relevant in today's cost concious environment is "Good balance of thought, theories, and case studies to make it real." We live in a real world so we need well thought out arguments to move forward.

If you have forgotten what happened last time you will find links to the 2011 Conference Archive and Webinars conference on the Congility Website.

The venue is the Arora Hotel, Gatwick (London) UK.

You can follow the progress of the conference development by visiting the Congility website. But in any case I will keep you up to date with developments when I hear about them.

The Survey in January 2013

2013-01-08T12:43:00.002+00:00

Doesn't time just fly by? In march 2011 we looked at the survey that was included in the Blog to find out what version of S1000D was being used.

The results at that time were:

S1000D Issue	Percentage
Issue 1 Change 6	27
Issue 1 Change 7	7
Issue 1 Change 8	13
Issue 1 Change 9	40
Issue 2 Change 0	13

You may remember that I commented on the fact that apparently no-one was using anything later than Issue 2.0 and that I thought that this was a dubious result. I happened to know that there were a number of projects that were using Issue 2.n but that perhaps people from this group of users had not yet found the Blog.

Well it looks as if I was right. Although the Survey questions were the same the results are now being shown in a much more pleasing way i.e. graphically rather then tabular as you can see below.

The Results

So what S1000D Issue are you using?

The total number of respondents is now 71. As you can see above, now the largest single version being used is Issue 4 representing just under 30% of those who took part - some might think that this is a little hight. Unfortunately I did not keep a note of the number of previous respondents.

Are you using a CSDB

The result of this question last time was 70% Yay and 30% Nay.

The result shown above indicates that more are using CSDBs. This of course, reflects that there are now applications of a more modest cost of both purchase and maintenance. Previously there were only heavyweights. Apart from one or two 'in-house' specials there were few if any less costly solutions.

I guess that the result also reflects the fact that a number of companies have tried to keep track of the production of data modules using a spreadsheet and realised that this is not the best method and can be hard work.

How many views

In putting this Blog on the web today I spotted that since we started there have been nearly 21,000 views of this page with 375 in December 2012 alone. I find that amazing.

Keep the entries coming. I will have a straw poll to see about resetting the data so that we can have a more up to date poll.

S1000D - "sense out of confusion"

Handing On

Signing Off

More Small Apps for S1000D Users

Publication Module Generator

BREX Checker

Why not try these applications?

Small Apps for S1000D Users

Assisted DDN Creation

Assisted Illustrated Parts Data Creation

More Missing Bits

Caption Group

Should it return

ITAR

Missing Bits

Level Attribute

Well, Well, Wel! - PDF Production now fixed

Windows Update and FrameMaker

Component Maintenance Publications

Airbus CDIM for A350 aircraft.

ATA Spec 1000BR_4.2

BREX Checker

Working with Warnings and Cautions

Way back When

Now

Scrutiny

The Spread of S1000D

Several Years Ago

A bit later

Recently

Any others?

A new S1000D Blog Reader Poll

Up to Now

And Now!

Why has it taken so long?

The Last Count - the survey

April 2016

Issues of S1000D

CSDB Usage

Where Responses Came From

S1000D Usage

Updating the End User

Updating our Users

How do we grab their attention

Help extra to the User Guide

Other peoples experiences

An experiment

IETPs

History

Today

The future

Windows 10

S1000D IPD Generation

Legacy Conversion

What about today

The Painless Way

S1000D and DITA

Do You Remember?

Why not?

So where are we?

I'm NOT a Luddite

S1000D Events in 2014

UK Based

In the US

Congility S1000D Has Passed

Opening Session - S1000D Direction (given by Dennis Hoyland)

Other presentations?

Can we get the presentations?

Congility S1000D is only a couple of months away

The Programme is Ready

Applicability

Practical Business Rules and its relation to the BREX

Legacy Conversion

The path from an LSA to S1000D

Are You Ready?

Congility S1000D 2013 - Now open for business

Congility S1000D 2013 - Post 2

S1000D Issue 4.1 is Released

Only One Schema Version

More Example Pages