- Overview of DITA extension facilities
DITA provides three extension facilities: configuration, constraint, and
specialization. In addition, generalization augments specialization.
- Configuration
Configuration enables the definition of DITA document types that include only the
vocabulary modules that are required for a given set of documents. There is no need
to modify the
vocabulary modules. Configurations are implemented as document-type shells.
- Specialization
The specialization feature of DITA
allows for the creation of new element types and attributes that are explicitly and
formally derived from existing types. This facilitates interchange of conforming DITA
content and ensures a minimum level of common processing for all DITA content. It
also
allows specialization-aware processors to add specialization-specific processing to
existing base processing.
- Generalization
Generalization is the process of reversing a specialization. It converts specialized
elements or attributes into the original types from which they were derived.
- Constraints
Constraint modules define additional
constraints for vocabulary modules in order to restrict
content models or attribute lists for specific element
types, remove certain extension elements from an integrated
domain module, or replace base element types with
domain-provided, extension element types.