Concepts

DITA concept topics answer "What is..." questions. They include a body-level element with a basic topic structure, including sections and examples.

Why concepts?

Concepts provide background that helps readers understand essential information about a product, interface, or task. Often, a concept is an extended definition of a major abstraction such as a process or function. Conceptual information may explain a product and how it fits into its category of products. Conceptual information helps users to map their existing knowledge to tasks and other essential information about a product or system.

Concept structure

The <concept> element is the top-level element for a DITA concept topic. Every concept contains a <title> and a <conbody> and optional <titlealts>, <shortdesc>, <prolog>, and <related-links>.

The <conbody> element is the main body-level element for a concept. Like the body element of a general topic, <conbody> allows paragraphs, lists, and other elements as well as sections and examples. But <conbody> has a constraint that a section or an example can be followed only by other sections or examples.

Here is an example of a simple concept topic.

<concept id="concept">
 <title>Bird Calling</title>
 <conbody>
  <p>Bird calling attracts birds.</p>
  <example>
   <p>Bird calling requires learning:</p>
   <ul>
    <li>Popular and classical bird songs</li>
    <li>How to whistle like a bird</li>
   </ul>
  </example>
 </conbody>
</concept>

Modules

concept.mod (DTD)
conceptMod.xsd, conceptGrp.xsd (Schema)