RE: [dita] Nested Sections - counterexample

["Esrig, Bruce (Bruce)" <esrig@lucent.com>]

Hmm ... let's try in that spirit ... (I can see this affecting the way that we choose to generalize task.)

 

According to this scenario, if we're offering an alternate command, we'd have to agree in the information architecture on what label to autogenerate for it. It wouldn't be user-settable.

 

If we grant that, another deviation is that it looks as though the link inside a step is a non-DITA thought. In fact, putting a jump to a related topic in every step might not be the right thing to do.

 

Note also the implicit query here: why do we distinguish <info> from <itemgroup>? At first glance, the similarities are striking.

 

Best wishes,

 

Bruce

 

===========

 

lu-task is a specialization of topic/topic

 

lu-taskbody is a specialization of topic/body

 

Anything I want before the steps is a specialization of one of our div elements, or of section.

There could be a section that contains the steps (not shown, and perhaps not part of the solution).

 

The steps might need to be generalized a little bit.

If <info> can contain everything that <itemgroup> can contain, then it's not a big deal.

gen-step is a specialization of li

cmd and stepresult are as currently defined

alternate-cmd is a new element that extends gen-step compared with step and is a specialization of itemgroup

If it autogenerates a label, it would have to be something generic such as "Alternate".

 

related-step is a specialization of link. It's pretty radical, right? Even going up to topic, I'm having trouble finding a context that would allow a link.

 

<lu-task otherprops="lang(1)">

<shortdesc>Short description of the full procedure</shortdesc>

<lu-taskbody>

<gen-steps>

   <gen-step>

       <cmd> what to do in Lang 1

       <stepresult>what you have accomplished  <!-- A label such as "Result" will be autogenerated -->

       <alternate-cmd>lang 2 command to achieve the same result <!-- may be suppressed in some outputs -->

       <related-step href="reference to the full procedure in Lang 2#correspondingcmd"> <!-- may be suppressed in some outputs -->

  </gen-step>

  <gen-step>

       <cmd> what to do in Lang 1 for next step

       <stepresult>what you have accomplished  <!-- A label such as "Result" will be autogenerated -->

       <alternate-cmd>lang 2 command to achieve the same result <!-- may be suppressed in some outputs -->

       <related-step href="reference to the full procedure in Lang 2#correspondingcmd"> <!-- may be suppressed in some outputs -->

  </gen-step>

</gen-steps>

</lu-taskbody>

<related-links>

    <link href="cross-reference to the full procedure in Lang 2"> <!-- Layout may include shortdesc of referenced procedure -->

</related-links>

</lu-task>

-----Original Message-----
From: France Baril [mailto:France.Baril@ixiasoft.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2005 4:26 PM
To: Esrig, Bruce (Bruce); dita@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [dita] Nested Sections - counterexample

Hi Bruce.

 

If I understand your email correctly, you are questioning the fact that the current DITA model could be used in this specific case.

 

My uneducated answer would be a specialization similar to this (uneducated because I might be missing part of the context):

 

<lucenttask otherprops="lang(1)">

<shortdesc>Short description of the full procedure</shortdesc>

<lucenttaskbody>

<steps>

   <step>

       <cmd> what to do in Lang 1

       <stepresult>what you have accomplished  <!-- The label is not necessary in the XML -->

       <related-step href="conreference to the full procedure in Lang 2#correspondingcmd"> <!-- output may or not include text of related cmd in lang 2 -->

  </step>

<step>

       <cmd> what to do in Lang 1 for next step

       <stepresult>what you have accomplished  <!-- The label is not necessary in the XML -->

       <related-step href="conreference to the full procedure in Lang 2#correspondingcmd"> <!-- output may or not include text of related cmd in lang 2 -->

  </step>

</steps>

<taskbody>

<related-links>

    <link href="cross-reference to the full procedure in Lang 2"> <!-- Layout may include shortdesc of referenced procedure -->

</related-links>

</task>

Is this a specialization, yes. Is this an issue? If you are going to base a whole project on the fact that you can reference another task in parallel, why not take the time to specialize and have a model that matches your specific needs? Creating a specialization is not a long task to perform, being able to change your mind on the presentation based on semantics might however save you a lot of time.

 

What if you decide to hide this info to some people? What if you want to display the text in gray or with a different background-color so that readers see it as extra information, not core info? What if you want to generate reports on what references to what? What if you don't want to see the preceding label anymore? What if you want to inforce your model so that authors always write the stepresults before the related-steps? What if related-steps are treated differently then other regular xrefs so that they actually extract the text from the referenced cmd?

 

This sounds to me like a big enough requirement to justify sending a new request to the development team. A few hours of development on the core model might save you long hours of hacking.