Conditional processing in DITA plays a pivotal role in efficiently managing product lifecycle documentation for different vehicle iterations and generations in the automotive industry. It allows content creators to tailor documentation to specific conditions or criteria, ensuring that the right information is presented to the right audience at the right time.

Role in Vehicle Iterations

Automotive companies often release multiple iterations of their vehicles, each with variations in features, specifications, and components. Conditional processing in DITA enables the creation of documentation that can be reused across these iterations while accommodating the differences. For example, a single DITA topic might contain information about a specific vehicle feature, and conditional processing can be used to include or exclude that topic based on the iteration, making documentation maintenance more efficient.

Role in Vehicle Generations

Vehicle generations involve more significant changes that may affect entire sections of documentation. With DITA’s conditional processing, documentation teams can manage content for different generations within a single source. For instance, a DITA map can include conditional statements that determine which chapters or sections are included based on the generation of the vehicle. This approach streamlines the creation of documentation for new generations while retaining the ability to maintain legacy documentation as needed.

Example:

Here’s an example of how conditional processing can be applied in DITA to manage documentation for different vehicle generations:

<map>
  <title>Vehicle Owner's Manual</title>
  <topicref href="common_introduction.dita" />
  <topicref href="common_safety_information.dita" />
  <topicref href="common_maintenance_procedures.dita" />
  <topicref href="generation_1_specific_content.dita" conkeyref="gen1" />
  <topicref href="generation_2_specific_content.dita" conkeyref="gen2" />
</map>

In this example, a DITA map includes common topics and conditionally referenced topics specific to different vehicle generations using conkeyref attributes. This ensures that the documentation includes the relevant content for each generation while maintaining a single source.