The most common scenario for first users of the DITA Open Toolkit is to evaluate how it functions. Previous versions of the Toolkit required a number of preliminary installation steps for components necessary both to run the base function and to show off additional output capabilities. With DITA-OT 1.4.2, three versions of the Toolkit are now available: the minimal package (updates core function only), standard package (minimal plus docs and demos), and a "full easy install package" that basically installs everything you need to enable quick and easy evaluation of the Toolkit. This topic deals with installing and using the full easy install package for the first time.
Unzip or extract the "full_easy_install" zip file to a convenient directory, such as your c: drive's root directory. The package will create a directory such as C:\DITA-OT-1.5.1\ that contains not only the usual Toolkit materials but also all the run-time components needed to run the Toolkit in a basic evaluation mode.
Browse over to this new directory and double-click on the "startcmd.bat" file in that directory. A new "command shell" window will open up, with the environment variables already set to enable the Toolkit to run within that shell.
At the command prompt (usually c:\DITA-OT1.5.1\ for this version), type "ant samples.web -f build_demo.xml". After a series of processing messages, there should be a new \out directory in the DITA-OT1.5.1\ directory that contains a folder with the resulting HTML output in it. Congratulations on creating your first example of DITA output!
Now try the full set of transforms from a single command: "ant all -f build_demo.xml". This command will process every DITA example in the Toolkit into each of the supported output types for the Toolkit. After a much longer flurry of messages, the \out directory should have a number of folders in it, each with several deliverables produced by the Toolkit demos. If you happen to have the Microsoft HTMLHelp Workshop or the JavaHelp toolset installed for other work you have done with User Assistance, you might even get ready-to use CHM and JavaHelp output files. By comparing the outputs with the various source materials in the distribution, you can get an idea about how the processing works. That explanation is best found in the DITA Open Toolkit User Guide and at the DITA-OT Focus Area at http://dita.xml.org .
Here are the individual demo targets that you can try while evaluating the DITA Open Toolkit. Note that most are subcomponents of larger operations--you can use any of these individually.
all Build all output
clean Delete all output
clean.demo Remove the demo output
clean.demo.book Remove the book demo output
clean.demo.elementref Remove the Element Reference demo output
clean.demo.enote Remove the eNote demo output
clean.demo.faq Remove the FAQ demo output
clean.demo.langref-dita1.1 Remove the DITA 1.1 Language Reference demo output
clean.demo.langref-dita1.1.compilehelp Remove the 1.1 Language Reference as CHM output
clean.doc Remove the documentation output
clean.doc.articles Delete the articles directory in doc.
clean.doc.langref-dita1.1 Delete the 1.1 langref directory in doc.
clean.docbook Remove the docbook output
clean.samples Remove the sample output
clean.samples.eclipse Remove the sample Eclipse output
clean.samples.htmlhelp Remove the sample HTMLHelp output
clean.samples.javahelp Remove the sample JavaHelp output
clean.samples.pdf Remove the sample PDF output
clean.samples.web Remove the sample web output
demo Build the demos
demo.book Build the book demo
demo.elementref Build the element reference demo
demo.enote Build the eNote demo
demo.faq Build the FAQ demo
demo.langref-dita1.1.pdf Build the DITA 1.1 Language Reference book as a demo
demo.langref-dita1.1.compilehelp Build the 1.1 Language Reference as HTML Help
doc Build the documentation
doc.articles.chm Build the articles of dita as document.
doc.articles.pdf Build the articles of dita as document.
doc.articles.web Build the articles of dita as document.
doc.langref-dita1.1.chm Build the DITA 1.1 Language Specification document.
doc.langref-dita1.1.pdf Build the DITA 1.1 Language Specification document.
doc.langref-dita1.1.web Build the DITA 1.1 Language Specification document.
docbook Transform the samples to DocBook
prompt Prompt to build anything
samples Build the sample output
samples.eclipse Build the samples for Eclipse
samples.htmlhelp Build the samples for HTMLHelp
samples.javahelp Build the samples for JavaHelp
samples.pdf Build the samples as PDF
samples.troff Build the samples as troff
samples.web Build the samples for the web
If you do not specify a target for build_demo.xml, the default target is prompt.
You can also try your hand at modifying some of the sample scripts in the ant directory. These represent the kind of driver files that you would create for your own projects. You can easily adapt these to process your own test DITA files, for example. Call the other ant samples after this example:
c:\DITA-OT1.5.1>ant -f samples/ant_sample/sample_xhtml.xml
(This is basically the same as running ant samples.web -f build_demo.xml, but intended for you to modify.)
You will find the output for this exercise in the samples/ant_sample/ directory itself. You can add parameters to the sample_xhtml.xml file to change where your outputs end up, and also to modify the build process in other ways. See the documentation for Ant parameters to learn more about processing options.