Creating a DITA bookmap

A DITA map is basically a sequence of possibly nested topicref elements. As suggested by its name, a topicref is simply a reference (or a “pointer”) to a topic stored in a separate file of its own.

A DITA bookmap is a useful variant of a map in which some specialized topicref elements: part, chapter, appendix, etc, may be used, not only to reference a topic, but also to give it a distinctive role.

In this lesson, we'll get acquainted with the buttons of the specialized toolbar which is automatically displayed when you open a DITA map or bookmap in XMLmind XML Editor (XXE for short).

• We'll first see how the "Edit Topicref" button may be used to modify a chapter topicref.
• Clicking the "Open Referenced Topic or Map" button or more simply, double-clicking a topicref, may be used to open the corresponding topic in XXE.
• Buttons "Insert Topicref Before", "Insert Topicref Into" and "Insert Topicref After" may be used to add topicrefs to a map.

  Note that these buttons, just like the "Edit Topicref" button, display a dialog box allowing to create on the fly the topic to be referenced or to choose an existing topic file.

  
• Buttons Promote and Demote may be used to respectively un-nest and nest topicrefs. For example, selecting a topicref nested inside a chapter then clicking Promote will un-nest this topicref and automatically convert it to a chapter.
• All the aforementioned tools are found not only in the specialized toolbar, but also in a popup menu displayed when you right-click a topicref or drag and drop a file onto a topicref.
  
• Opening a map in XXE does not display a specialized pane but simply displays an ordinary document view styled using a specific CSS file. This means that, in addition to the specialized toolbar, any stock tool (Edit tool, Attributes tool, etc) may be used to edit a DITA map. Examples:
  • Select appendix and click Delete (or press Del) to delete it.
  • Select frontmatter/booklist and use "Insert After" (or press Ctrl-J) to add a topicref pointing to an introductory topic after the toc element.
• Finally, we'll see how to use the "Add reltable" button to add a reltable to a DITA map and how to use the "Reltable row" button to remove a relrow from this reltable.

Watch the screencast

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