Re: [dita] example of catalog of small topics

["Eliot Kimber" <ekimber@innodata-isogen.com>]

Esrig, Bruce (Bruce) wrote:

> Here's an excerpt from the Lucent in-house style guide, showing our
> use of subsections (what we call LiPP subblocks). (Please don't
> assume that this quotation accurately reflects the formatting of our
> style guide!)

I would consider each of these entries to be a topic--they stand alone 
and meet the general requirements for a reference topic.

If these are essentially summaries of more complete element descriptions 
then I think what you have is a function of style (that goes beyond the 
base DITA formatting reflected in the toolkit).

Back the in day at IBM we definitely had the concept that the same 
reference entries could be presented in both their full form, say as 
part of a formal reference manual, as well as in some form of summary, 
such as a command summary table. This is done simply by applying a 
different presentation style to the same element types and, as 
appropriate, suppressing those things you don't want in the summary.

For example, you could specialize map to provide a wrapper that 
establishes the "command summary" context so your presentation system 
can apply the command summary style to the same set of topics.

That is, I don't see this particular case as requiring any new form of 
reference or structure, beyond a bit of specialization (or even just a 
known value for output-class) and some custom style sheets.

Cheers,

Eliot