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Subject: Re: [dita] ISBN Element Trapped in Bookmap Specialization
Based on today's TC call, I said I would follow up with some comments on the technical side of this. Currently, ISBN is used as follows: <bookmeta> <bookid> <isbn>1234567890</isbn> </bookid> </bookmeta> bookid and isbn are both specialized from <data> today, and bookmeta is specialized from topicmeta. So, this generalizes back to: <topicmeta> <data> <data>1234567890</data> </data>> </topicmeta> If we add the isbn element to the topic prolog, I think we would do so as topic/isbn rather than as "topic/data topic/isbn" - the core topic model does not have any specialized elements, and I do not think that isbn would be an exception. If we then want to define <isbn> in a way that bookmap can pick it up unchanged (aside from a temporary bookmap/isbn token in the class attribute), we would need to define it in the same location that bookmap already uses it. This means it would have to be inside an existing data element, and I'm not sure how we can do that unless we add the whole bookid structure to topic. One alternative that I can see is to add <isbn> into topicmeta in whatever spot seems appropriate. The bookmeta specialization drops the core <isbn> and redefines its own version as a specialization of data. In DITA 2.0, bookmeta would drop its re-definition of isbn and switch over to the new definition. Not pretty ... have any better ideas? Robert D Anderson IBM Authoring Tools Development Chief Architect, DITA Open Toolkit (507) 253-8787, T/L 553-8787 (Good Monday & Thursday) Eliot Kimber <ekimber@reallysi .com> To dita <dita@lists.oasis-open.org> 05/29/2008 10:44 cc AM Subject [dita] ISBN Element Trapped in Bookmap Specialization The bookmap specialization is in general not usable for publications that do not or cannot conform to the constraints imposed by the bookmap specialization. This includes, many, if not most, publications produced by publishers. These constraints include requirements/limitations in bookmap metadata as well as constraints and requirements imposed by the bookmap content structure model. However, there is one element defined only in the bookmap specialization that is potentially applicable to *any* publication, the <isbn> element. ISBN is the only bookmap metadata element that is truly universal and not really a reflection of (potentially) enterprise-specific practice. Any publication, even product-specific technical manuals, may have ISBN numbers associated with them. Thus it seems to me that <isbn> should not be bookmap specific but should be part of the base set of DITA-defined metadata elements. As it is, in order to create a publication map that includes ISBN numbers in its metadata, I either have to copy the declaration from bookmap into my specialization (and maintain the bookmap class value), define a new element type that has the same meaning but a different name, or simply use "isbn" as the local element type name and put it in my own module space (since there's no possibility of future derivation from bookmap). I'm not sure which of these options is the best, but definitely declaring an element with a name other than "isbn" seems like the worst choice. I think this could be fairly classified as a bug in the 1.1 design: isbn should never have been specific to bookmap. Is there any possibility that this could be addressed as a bug and isbn moved to a more appropriate module? I think the appropriate fix would be to declare "isbn" in topic.mod with the class "- topic/data topic/isbn " and then declared in bookmap.mod with the class "- topic/data topic/isbn bookmap/isbn " This would allow existing bookmap processors that expect "bookmap/isbn" to still work but would make topic/isbn available to all topics and maps. The type "bookmap/isbn" could be flagged as deprecated so that we can remove it in a future release. Cheers, Eliot -- Eliot Kimber Senior Solutions Architect "Bringing Strategy, Content, and Technology Together" Main: 610.631.6770 www.reallysi.com www.rsuitecms.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this mail list, you must leave the OASIS TC that generates this mail. You may a link to this group and all your TCs in OASIS at: https://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/portal/my_workgroups.php
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