Writing XSLT for DITA
The default XSLT stylesheets provided with the built-in portal themes are extremely
small. Instead of implementing the full transform functionality, they reference a
number of
utility XSLT modules that do most of the work. Then, they override the behavior in
those modules
to do specific processing for some elements, such as notes and images.
The theme XSLT templates are applied to the FLATTENED ItemRepresentationType of topics, or to the MONOLITH rendition of maps--not to the original XML document that was uploaded to the project. The processed version will include the results of conventional DITA processing expectations such as adding the DITA @class attribute on all elements, resolving external references and content inclusions, applying any profiling filters, and adding navigation links based on the topic's map context.