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Technical Information Application
Technical Information Overview
You need to implement a document type on the Arbortext Publishing Engine server that can publish the transformed XML document created by the Service application. A sample DITA document type application is included with Arbortext Editor and Publishing Engine, which you can use as a starting point or analyze to determine key requirements for your own document type.
The Technical Information application is a specialized DITA document type. It organizes and manages information about service operations and parts. The Arbortext Publishing Engine server has the application installed by default in:
Arbortext-path\application\com.ptc.arbortext.techinfo
Description of the Technical Information Document Type
The Technical Information application topics can be used to develop service information or as a starting point for developing your own specialized DITA application. The Technical Information application is a specialization of the Arbortext DITA application, but a custom document type is not required to be based on DITA.
The following topic types are available for the Technical Information document type:
Concept
Provides background information that users must understand before they can work with a product or interface, or perform a task.
Cover Page
Provides the information to go on the cover page for a PDF or printed document.
Diagnostic
Provides diagnostic information.
Procedure
Provides a procedure for how to perform a task. In this case, the steps and graphics are mixed in a single text flow.
Reference
Provides information about the regular features of a service, product, or part.
Side-by-Side Procedure
Provides a procedure for how to perform a task. In this case, the steps and graphics are presented side-by-side in a tabular format.
Task
Provides procedural information.
Troubleshooting
Provides troubleshooting or diagnostic information.
Description of the Technical Information Stylesheet
The Technical Information document type includes a sample Arbortext Styler stylesheet for publishing, located in:
Arbortext-path\application\com.ptc.arbortext.techinfo
\doctypes\techinfo\techinfo.style
Checking the Transformation and Styling
You can produce a stylesheet for your output. To check your progress, you can open the root document from the payload, make adjustments to your stylesheet, and test your changes when you generate the output using Arbortext Publishing Engine Interactive. XSLT authors can also use this process to assess their transformations that produce the target map and target parts lists.
You need to obtain a payload from the Arbortext Publishing Engine server. WVS and Arbortext Publishing Engine must be set up for publishing. On the Arbortext Publishing Engine server, the transaction archive must be configured and active. (Refer to Configuring Arbortext Publishing Engine documentation for information about the transaction archive, part of the Arbortext Publishing Engine documentation.) Then you can launch a publishing request from your publication structure, information structure, or parts list in Windchill. From the transaction archive, find your transaction and download and rename the request body, called the rqbody.dat. Rename it using a .zip extension.
Open the payload’s root document Identifier.xml in Arbortext Publishing Engine Interactive to manually produce its target map. You can either extract the files from the payload.zip first and open the root Identifier.xml document, or you can open the payload.zip itself. The Edit > Edit Transformed Document appears only if you open a Identifier.xml from a payload (this means the document type must be PublicationStructure for the menu item to be available). When you choose Edit Transformed Document, Arbortext Publishing Engine Interactive performs the transformation from the Service application on the root document and all its referenced documents. Then the resulting target map (for instance, a techinfomap) is displayed in a new window.
If you are using a DITA map specialization, then you can use Edit > Edit Resolved Document For Styling in Arbortext Publishing Engine Interactive to see the styled result. If the target was some other document type, you can at least see the result by viewing the map and publishing it.
The sections that follow provide some tips on how the techinfo.style stylesheet is designed.
The Manual Title
The sample stylesheet uses the outputclass attribute on the techinfomap root map element to generate the following titles:
outputclass Attribute Value
Title
service
Service Manual
installation
Installation Manual
owners
Owner’s Manual
parts
Illustrated Parts Catalog
Title Page Numbering
On the title page, number and numberlist are used to generate leading phrases for serial numbers, part numbers, and model numbers
outputclass Attribute Value
Phrase
serial
Serial No.
part
Part No.
model
Model No.
No text is generated if the outputclass value is blank or a value different from those listed. numberlist can contain numberarrange.
Side by Side Procedures
To have a procedure appear with the text on the left and the graphics on the right, you need to apply special tagging structure. At least one of the procstep tags must contain a procinfo tag. If no procinfo tags are present in the procedure, then it is not displayed as a side by side procedure
Parts List Table Modifications
The Parts List XML markup is a custom table. As such, the Arbortext Styler stylesheet uses some of the table’s properties to apply styling. The default parts list table includes the Item Number, Indenture, Part Number, Part Name, Quantity, Spareable Indicator, Not illustrated, and Remarks.
Property
Data Type
partattribute Name
Output
Item Number
String
itemNumber
Yes
Item Sequence Number
Integer
itemSequenceNumber
No
Indenture
Integer (0-6)
indenture
No, tested against
Part Number
String
number
Yes
Part Name
String
name
Yes
Quantity
String
itemQuantity
Yes
Spareable Indicator
Boolean
serviceable
No, tested against
Not Illustrated
Boolean
illustrated
No, tested against
Refer To
FIG
ITM
ISN
referTo
No
Remarks
String
remarks
Y
To test the values of serviceable and illustrated, you need to add the values of the partattribute name=”serviceable” and partattribute name=”illustrated” as an attribute to partitem by editing the XML version of the stylesheet, rather than through the Arbortext Styler user interface.
The output of item number and part number are dependent upon the values of the serviceable and illustrated properties as follows:
Serviceable
Illustrated
Display Part Number?
Display Item Number?
True
True
Yes
Yes
True
False
Yes
No
False
True
No
Yes
False
False
No
No
By modifying the XML version of the stylesheet and using SetOutputAttribute, the values are saved as attributes. Those attributes are then tested against the _sfe elements that are generated as part of the custom table.