S1000D Issue 4.1 is Released

The moment we have all been waiting for (well some anyway) has arrived. S1000D Issue 4.1 is released. When we downloaded it we thought that there was something missing. We were also very pleased(?) to find that the dreaded statement "Examples will be supplied at a future Issue" is not used so often

Only One Schema Version

In the Pre-Releases there was only the flat schema present, well up to the last one that is when the Master and Flat Schemas were present. So when we discovered that there was only a Flat Schema in the Release we were surprised. However we now understand that this is the way it is going to be for the foreseeable future.

I understand that this is something to do with some Editor Applications and other software not handling the re-definition of some elements very well. This was not something that affected us too much but at least it simplifies our implementation a bit.

More Example Pages

I know that the S1000D Specification is intended to be used with an IETP but a number of people that we come into contact with are indicating that for various reasons hard copy is required. The hard copy is necessary for several reasons including having the necessary information in non-electronic form in locations where computers are not allowed (e.g. Ships Magazines) and for vetting purposes where the authors do not want to provide the vetting engineers with software that will handle Data Modules Directly.

So, having noted in earlier releases that there Information codes for Data Modules such as Front Pages, List of Effective Pages, Tables of Contents etc it is almost exciting to see that we now have examples provided for us.

Granularity

When viewing the Table of Contents example which has now been provided I am struck by the Granularity Issue. The Specification intimates that there should not be any duplication of information within Data Modules yet some of the items in the example given indicates that they are not playing the game, so to speak. In looking at the titles in the list some of the Data Modules (indicated by the Data Module Code entry in the list) is a single Data Module whereas in fact I would have expected some of these topics to be made up of several much smaller titles.

This causes us a dilemma. As you may know we at Mekon have an application which concatenates Data Modules into a single chapter (chapters just like those in the S1000D spec but being made up of multiple Data Modules) so that the book appears to be much more like a 'Traditional' handbook. What do we put in the Data Module Code column of the Table of Contents?

Front Page

The example of the Front Page given in the Specification shows what elements have been used for the various displayed items. This has removed the guess work that we have sometimes had to resort to. Both Andrew and I have been involved in S1000D pretty much since before the first public issue (which was 1.6) and so we know how various parts were initially conceived which is fine for things like Procedural and Descriptive Data Modules etc. But these new pages, which include the Front Page, have had us guessing what has been discussed.

I suppose what these new definitions of page layouts will involve us in is another set of preference tick boxes to cover legacy or S1000D for some of these pages. Our main S1000D applicatin already has this facility included to encompass all the issues from 1.6 to 4.0.1 and now 4.1.

With the Front Page come some welcome indications of how other preliminary pages are to be handled.  However along with those are a number of additions such as how and what to display in the Highlights and List of Effective Pages (And Data Modules). The insertion of I's, N's, R's and C's is going to make for some interesting processing decisions. We also have a choice of Tables of Contents, i.e. ordinary or hierarchical.

Service Bulletin

A welcome addition to the Specification is the provision of a Service Bulletin schema. We have a number of clients who work with iSpec 2200 and several times over the last few years we have been asked how a Service Bulletin should be handled.

Now we have a definitive answer.

What Else?

My comments above only arise because I have just put together something for a presentation. I have not yet had a look at other parts of the Specification in detail and will obviously visit the Highlights Pages to find out more about the other changes.

I was going to say 'I look forward to finding out what other changes have been effected' but I thought better of it!