Meeting minutes 2015 06 04

Attendance: Robert, Radu, Eliot, Kris, Jarno, Rick, Roger, Shane, Eric,

Item 1: Any updates about prior releases?

Any concerns about 1.x, 2.0, or plans for fix release?

Unlikely that we'll have a 1.8.6. Have a pull request there for 2.0.2, could release that this week, and a 2.0.3 in the future as needed.

Item 2: DITA-OT 2.1 status and updates

Jarno has been working on ODT refactoring but hasn't finished. Won't be able to merge in URI support for external URIs, not enough time / testing, and unable to test on Windows. Hoping for 2.2 for that one.

Robert continuing to update/refactor troff, trying to get rest in over next couple days.

Plan to release 2.1 soon - target next Friday. Roger has set aside time next week to bring docs up to date.

Jarno has added "deprecated" messages to lots of XSLT templates, not sure whether documentation needed - likely good as a list. Roger plans to scan code for those.

Radu: have started using 2.1M1 with Oxygen, trying to generate PDF from Oxygen user manual. Ran into 5 or 6 bugs, added this week to issues tracker. Proposed fix for several. Concern that 2.1 needs to be more stable. Also had a few users interested in DITA 1.3: troubleshooting, key scopes, inline SVG.

Troubleshooting: Kris asks about when this can be added, seems relatively simple, maybe work on getting generated text? Eliot: has been implementing support for all 1.3 features geared towards 1.8 DITA-OT. Most should work in 2.0. Not sure how to contribute or how to create plugins, Jarno has suggested in past to make such extensions as plugins. Kris: volunteers to work with Shane / Roger about default styling for Troubleshooting. Shane already working on this outside of DITA-OT.

Item 3: Doc updates and plans

Fate of the startcmd scripts in 2.1? Using it in 2.0 gives a "this is deprecated" message. Roger meeting people at conferences - and hearing a lot of concern. Users know it, love it, are terrified of its removal. Kris agrees: have clients that are very small, not in CCMS, using DITA-OT directly, don't know how to mess with variables.

Robert: just want to point out - I always call with bin\dita which means that no environment variables are needed.

Kris: my own usage, my clients, rely 100% on startcmd. They run ant scripts. Can you run ant scripts from bin\dita command? Past: using DITA-OT was tough, had to install plugins, had to set up Ant, etc - people found it intimidating and was very hard to get them going. Startcmd was a relief that made everything easy. Not sure if if the dita command and 2.0 are taking us back to the old hard days.

Shane: I've shifted from using Ant scripts to using Properties files. Up front work but finding it easier.

Roger: Yes, discussed in past, need to make that easier. I'm in same place as Kris, clients are on 1.7 or 1.8 releases, so I can't create the content yet about that move.

Robert: my own usage is much easier. For those who call the command line -- "ant -f build.xml option option" -- it's easy to use and easy to learn.

Eliot: my problem as removed Ant targets - I have to maintain 2 versions of dita4publishers because Ant targets were removed, so the plugins fail. I can't support people yet on 2.0 because I don't have time to maintain 2 versions.

Radu: same problem with our WebHelp plugin, I wanted it to work with 1.8 and 2.0 without maintaining 2 things. Made it work somehow by declaring empty targets. Will send follow up email to Eliot.

Summary: lot of concern. So many people rely on startcme. Many people use different versions of DITA-OT at same time, and startcmd lets them set variables for that specific instance. Consensus from everybody remaining on the call: it should remain for 2.1, even if still with "deprecated" message.

Summary: lots of concern about 2.0. Even many of contributors on the call are afraid to go to it because old plugins are not working. Need to make sure 2.x releases are easy to use, as easy as startcmd was.

Shane: for migration to 2.0 and properties files in particular, if OT shipped with default properties files that were commented, could help - copy and un-comment / set things from an example properties file. Roger agrees.

Item 4: DITA-OT Day 2015

Munich bound... George said everything going according to plan. Have online registration form set up. Have link for people who want to submit presentation ideas.

http://www.oxygenxml.com/events/2015/dita-ot_day.html

Item 5: Other topics

Rapid OASIS summary.