upgrading DITAOT 1.8 into DITAOT 4.2.3 challenges

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Ganapathy P

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Jul 1, 2024, 11:40:25 PMJul 1
to DITA-OT Users
Hi Team,

We are upgrading from DITA-OT 1.8 to DITA-OT 4.2.3 in our CMS. Currently, we have many customized plugins in DITA-OT 1.8.

I have copied all the customized plugins to the new version (4.2.3) and updated all stylesheet file versions from 1.0 and 2.0 to 3.0 in the new DITA-OT. However, we are encountering numerous pipeline errors in the stylesheet code. Additionally, SAXON 12 is not providing the exact stylesheet file and line number to identify the errors when running from Oxygen.

My question is: Is this above method the correct way to upgrade, or do we need to rewrite (fresh) the stylesheet code for every customization plugin in the new DITA-OT version? Almost, we did 15+ customized plugin in old DITAOT version 1.8 and lot of templates (nearly 500+)

Please advise.

Thanks
Ganapathy

Radu Coravu

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Jul 2, 2024, 2:17:29 AMJul 2
to Ganapathy P, DITA-OT Users
Hi Ganapathy,

I added an internal DITA OT issue for the fact that certain problems are reported without precise information about the place where they occurred in the stylesheet:

Your jump from DITA OT 1.8 to 4.2.3 is a very big one, there were more than 4 years of development and changes between these versions.
There are some PDF customization best practices and migration topics in the DITA OT's user's guide:

As you seem to be an Oxygen XML Editor user, we have clients who migrated from using XSL-FO based PDF customizations to using CSS for customizations with the CSS-based transformation Oxygen uses. At least with CSS customizations are easier to read and maintain without the need to know XSLT.

Regards,
Radu

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Amit Siddhartha

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Jul 2, 2024, 3:43:05 AMJul 2
to Ganapathy P, DITA-OT Users
Hello Ganapathy,

Jumping from DITA-OT 1.8 to DITA-OT 4.2.3 is a huge jump. There are fixes and enhancements done at multiple levels in the latest DITAOT.
Also, could you please tell what is the CMS/ CCMSyou are using?

Many CMS/CCMS have configurations for pipeline processing configuration done with the standard DITAOT. However, the processing instructions are through different files. So, you may need to check the processors. If you have written standard XSLTs, then you may not need to do many modifications.


Thank you,
Amit Siddhartha
Founder & CEO

Metapercept Technology Services LLP
Skype: amitsiddhartha

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Ganapathy P

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Jul 2, 2024, 5:01:31 AMJul 2
to Amit Siddhartha, DITA-OT Users
Hi Amit,
Thank you for your response.

"We are using CMS for pipeline processing with the Standard DITA-OT. We started using DITA-OT 15 years ago with version 1.8. Over the years, we have customized it with more than 15 plugins and used standard code in XSLT 1.0 and 2.0.

 At present, the latest version of DITA-OT is 4.2.3. The Saxon version has also changed to 12, and the XSLT version has changed to 3.0. After integrating our old custom plugins into the new DITA-OT version, we are facing many XSLT code issues during execution." 

Regards,
Ganapathy

Amit Siddhartha

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Jul 2, 2024, 7:16:35 AMJul 2
to Ganapathy P, DITA-OT Users
Hello Ganapathy,

You need to fix XSLT and update your plugins to resolve the issues. There is no straight forward migration/upgrade unless you are migrating/ upgrading from the immediate versions.

Thank you,
Amit Siddhartha
Founder & CEO

Metapercept Technology Services LLP
Skype: amitsiddhartha

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This e-mail is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed (the "addressee") and may contain confidential or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination, or other use that a person other than the addressee makes of this communication is prohibited, and any reliance or decisions made based on it are the responsibility of such person. We accept no responsibility for any loss or damages suffered by any person other than the addressee due to decisions made or actions taken based on this communication or otherwise. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and destroy all copies of this e-mail.

Amit Siddhartha

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Jul 2, 2024, 7:18:49 AMJul 2
to Ganapathy P, DITA-OT Users
FYI,

If your team has good expertise in XSLT and DITAOT, then you can fix issues and upgrade to the latest DITAOT based publishing in a time span of 6 to 8 months with complete testing.
However, it also depends if you have specialized your DITAOT. If not, then the standard time to upgrade the entire environment is 6 to 8 months. Else, 11 to 12 months.

Thank you,
Amit Siddhartha
Founder & CEO

Metapercept Technology Services LLP
Skype: amitsiddhartha

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