Add FAQ

[jelovirt]

A DITA-OT FAQ is needed. The list should be about a dozen questions long.

Format your suggestion as

## Question

Answer.

[paperdigits]

1. What is DITA?
   DITA is the Darwinian Information Typing Architecture, an XML standard for authoring modular documents with an emphasis on reuse, maintained by the DITA Technical Committee at OASIS.

2. How does the DITA-OT relate to DITA on the whole?
   The DITA Open Toolkit is an open source implementation of the DITA standard. The Open Toolkit only processes DITA XML files into output, like PDF and HTML.

   In addition to the Open Toolkit, you still need an XML editor and some way to store your files.

3. What's required to run the OT? What platforms are supported?

   • java 6+

   The DITA-OT will run most places that Java will run.

4. What are some alternatives to the OT?

   • Ditac
   • DITA2GO
   • FrameMaker v11+

5. What stages of the processing are usually [loaded term perhaps?] extended by users?

6. What skills are needed for administering use of the OT
   An understanding of java/Ant errors and the DITA build process.

7. What skills are needed extending the OT?
   An understanding of XSLT, Ant, and possibly java, depending on the nature of your extension.

This isn't final... just what I was able to get down in a short sitting.

[jelovirt]

@paperdigits, not sure about the "... how is DITA different" question, as it doesn't really deal with DITA-OT and is an extension to question about what is DITA.

[scalderwood]

1. What is the general order of processing from when I execute the command that triggers the OT and the output is done being generated? (e.g., what is the order of topic pull, conref resolution, etc.)
2. What stages of the processing are usually [loaded term perhaps?] extended by users?
3. What skills are needed for administering use of the OT and for extending the OT?

[paperdigits]

@jelovirt Should I just start an HTML file in the project's root? I am going to write some answers this evening.

[robander]

@scalderwood Re: processing order -- note that we have pretty complete information on that right now, in the developer reference section of the docs. There is a long section on the processing order / what happens, as well as a topic that addresses how changing the order would impact final results:

http://dita-ot.github.io/1.8/dev_ref/DITA-OTArchitecture.html

Just want to make sure we don't rewrite all of that and/or provide mismatched content. Happy to see an overview that directs readers to the more extended info.

[jelovirt]

@paperdigits It will be faq.md, but let's collect the questions first. You can edit the comment you've left here to actually include the answer. Just format the question to be a level 2 heading by prefixing it with ##.

[scalderwood]

@robander +1, totally agree.

[infotexture]

Closing this here, as I think an FAQ is better treated as a documentation issue.

See dita-ot/docs#94.