Hi France--
Actually, when used alone, and not inside an abstract, shortdesc is
meant to figure as the first paragraph of the topic body:
The short description (<shortdesc>)
element
occurs between the topic title and the topic body, as the initial
paragraph-like
content of a topic... Use the <shortdesc> element when the first
paragraph of topic
content is simple enough to be suitable for use as a link preview or
for summaries.... In cases where
a topic contains only one paragraph, then it is preferable to include
this
text in the <shortdesc> and leave the topic body empty.
While an abstract would appear first in a topic, I assume it would be
set off as an executive summary or some such, and not appear as part of
the body of a topic, as shortdesc alone would.
Erik and I have had some ex parte communication on this, which I
reproduce for the group below:
Hi Erik et al--
Thanks for the links - I downloaded the latest pdf and reviewed as
well. I guess I hadn't been keeping up on the abstract documentation,
and had only seen it for shortdesc.
Nevertheless, I think France still has a point.
While abstract is the first content of the topic, I assume it's
intended to be set off as an abstract, and not figure as part of the
body of the topic. shortdesc, on the other hand, when used alone, is
meant to figure as the first paragraph of the body.
It would seem, then, that abstract is more a kind of "topic metadata"
than shortdesc. And while it's unlikely one would want to override the
first paragraph of the body of a topic based on its inclusion in a
certain collection of topics - it's much more likely one might want to
override a topic's introductory abstract or executive summary based on
the collection's parameters.
BTW - there seems to be a bit of a contradiction built into shortdesc
now - it's the first paragraph of the body when used alone - but when
embedded in an abstract, does it's content also figure as the first
paragraph(s) in the body?
--Dana
Erik Hennum wrote:
Hi, Dana and France:
As background for revisting whether <abstract> should get pulled
into the map, here are the existing definitions of the elements:
http://docs.oasis-open.org/dita/v1.1/CD02/langspec/langref/abstract.html
The abstract element occurs between the topic title and the topic body,
as the initial content of a topic.
http://docs.oasis-open.org/dita/v1.1/CD02/langspec/langref/shortdesc.html
The short description, which represents the purpose or theme of the
topic, is also intended to be used as a link preview and for searching.
At least, I believe these are the latest versions of the specification.
Hoping that's useful,
Erik Hennum
ehennum@us.ibm.com
--Dana
France Baril wrote:
With
this proposal, the committee is making an effort to increase
concistency between maps and topics. However, it also states: The map metadata will still have
several elements that are not present in topic prologs: linktext,
searchtitle, shortdesc, and (assuming that implementation of item
#12018 results in this element) navtitle.
With
the arrival of abstracts in DITA 1.1 topics, the proposed usage
of <abstract/> and <shortdesc/> is as follow:
* Abstract: Full sentences that can be used for automated overviews,
summaries. They are also the topics' first paragraph.
* Shortdesc: Phrases, sentence segments that provide 'hints' when users
roll over related links or xrefs.
Keeping
shortdesc instead of including abstract in the map metadata may lead to
inconsistency on the way people use the shortdesc element in maps and
topics. Are shortdesc elements in map used for 'roll over' purposes
only? I'm not sure a partial sentence is very useful, even as metadata.
Since
this may bring up the whole transitional text discussion, the
committee has moved to accept proposal 12017 as is, but has suggested
that we bring up this discussion on the list. So here it is: should we
introduce abstract in map metadata for the sake of consistency in the
way elements are used?
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