Meeting Minutes of DITA TC meeting on 25 August 2009

["Gershon Joseph (gerjosep)" <gerjosep@cisco.com>]

 

 

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DITA Technical Committee Meeting Minutes
========================================


The DITA Technical Committee met on 25 August 2009 at 08:00am PT for 65 minutes.

Chaired by Don Day <dond@us.ibm.com>
Minutes recorded by Gershon Joseph <gerjosep@cisco.com>


Roll call
> Quorum was achieved.


Approve minutes from previous business meeting:
* http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/200908/msg00049.html (18 August 2009, Frankland)
> Minutes accepted by acclamation


Subcommittee/liaison reports (as needed) 

* OASIS DITA Help Subcommittee (Stan, 8/25) 

> Stan: Doing outreach to investigate support for newer standards, including 
> Microsoft Help 3.0, Apache Struts and OSI FreeMarker.
> Looking ahead to DITA 1.3 candidate specializations, e.g. metadata.
> Evaluating what DITA 1.2 has vs. what we need, such as help browse sequences,
> context help ID management, specifying target windows and behaviors, how to 
> provide embedded field level help (e.g. in APIs), how to work with active 
> content (click something and it runs an application or executes collateral 
> supportive to the help system -- how to mark that up in DITA and processing 
> requirements.
> Revise the DITA help technology guide.


Open Actions: 

* Chris Kravogel to include graphics of hazard images in next draft 
> Kris: not been delivered yet; suggested moving this item to the spec business
> section.

* Michael on review of map element ID update proposal 
> CLOSED.

* Eliot on lockmeta updates 
> CONTINUED.

* Eliot on L&T content and schema updates, Robert and Eric S on package updates for L&T
> CONTINUED.


Business: Continue first focus on architectural specification 


ITEM: DITA 1.2 specification (Revised for the August 25 TC meeting, KJE) 

* Business: 

  * Progress report on architectural spec 

    * Author's meeting on 20 August 
    > Kris: We had a large authors meeting to track progress.
    > Authors agreed to update Wiki page with what they've done.

    * Revised schedule 
    > Kris: Want to try to prevent further slippage. Want to get out to OASIS 
    > review no later than December 1st. Need to insist on 2-week review 
    > timeframes.

    > Paul: What if comments come in late?

    > Kris: That and also comments that require lots of work may not be addressed 
    > in this release.

    * All Nancy Harrison's topics reassigned 
    > Kris: Reassigned authors to many topics.
    > Kris: Updated status values for Excel spread sheet 

    > Seth Park is replacing Nancy H with processing topics, so we need a new 
    > reviewer for these topics (Seth was previously the reviewer).

    > Paul: I plan to review the whole thing.
    > Jeff happy to sign up for those items.

    * Outstanding action items: 

      * Uploading Learning & Training arch spec topics into Subversion (Eberlein) 
      > Kris: L&T topics are now in subversion.

      * Content of "Contains" and "Contains by" sections for Machine Industry topics + documenting how to generate the sections (Anderson) 

    > Kris: Erik H asked Robert and Eric Sirois to review and edit the 
    > constraints topics to ensure the DTD and Schema specific info is complete 
    > and accurate.

    > Jeff: re packaging, what is it that OASIS will approve?

    > Don: Package that we identify as including the DTDs, schemas and 
    > documentation of that. Everything we intend to be under the 1.2 scope of 
    > content.

    > Robert: We need to include every package that's part of the spec, so if we 
    > have 4 packages all 4 are to be reviewed by OASIS and all 4 are part of the 
    > spec.

    > Don: My understanding is like Robert's -- everything has to pass under the 
    > OASIS microscope.

    > Discussion on overview PDF or HTML doc that is the "starting point" or 
    > container of the entire spec. Jeff to locate the PDF. Others recall this 
    > being HTML, not PDF. The TC will clarify this over the coming weeks.


      * Updating conformance statement (Kimber) 

    * New work items:

      * Reviewer for processing topics (replacement for Seth Park) 

      * Plea from Erik Hennum: "The implementation section of the constraints 
        topic and the equivalent section of the modified specialization topic 
        still cry out plaintively for review by the DTD and XSD implementation 
        authorities (Robert and Eric)." E-mail, 20 August 2009 


* ITEM: Issue: Map element IDs and references to them 
  * http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/200907/msg00024.html (Kimber) 
  * http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/200908/msg00062.html (Ogden's wrap up) 
  > To be handled via documentation in DITA 1.2
  > To be handled more fully in DITA 1.3.

  > ACTION: Kris to add this to the list of items we need to address in the arch 
  > spec. Note that Wording for maps and topics should be parallel when this 
  > update is made. Also, the update should be based on the final wording that 
  > Jeff suggested (based on Eliot's suggested text). See email thread for final 
  > wording.

  > Jeff: I also had a question how much we want to enforce the warning on 
  > processors?
  > The TC agreed it should be "may" and not "required".

  > CLOSED.

* New ITEM: <shortdesc> in a DITA map 
  * http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/200908/msg00061.html (Eberlein)

  > Jeff: I"m leaning towards treating <shortdesc> like everything else.

  > Michael: If you're creating a new copy-to, push shortdesc into the new copy. 
  > I think we should preserve this behavior since it's useful for reuse. The 
  > other place driving the ambiguity is the difference between different output 
  > media -- in PDF it makes sense to push the shortdesc into the topics, but in 
  > HTML it's possible you'd want to modify the link text to use. So you're 
  > potentially authoring different things depending on if output is PDF or HTML.

  > Jeff: We're using shortdesc in map because we don't have shortdesc or 
  > link-preview in the map. So we have one element (shortdesc) we're trying to 
  > do 2 things with.

  > Michael: We have alt titles, but we don't have alt shortdescs. We all agree 
  > that fixing this is beyond scope of 1.2. I'm suggested leaving it as link 
  > preview for everything except for copy-to case. The spec should use "may" and 
  > not "must" to prevent making this a normative requirement in 1.2.

  > Jeff: Then in 1.3 we could add shortdesc-alt are we locked into the dita 1.2 
  > decision we're making now or are we able to make other changes?

  > Kris: Content of shortdesc used in DITA map is used only for link previews 
  > except when a copy-to occurs, but processors can to otherwise.

  > ACTION: Kris to manage this for dita 1.2 spec

  > ACTION: Gershon to add this to dita 1.3 feature list.

  > CLOSED.


* New ITEM: Problem with packaging of glossaries 
  * http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/200908/msg00069.html (Nevin)

  > The TC clarified that the packaging has no implication on what is used as the 
  > basis for the simplified topic specializations being designed by the 
  > enterprise business SC.

  > Don: This has changed to a discussion of the policy of specs moving forward as 
  > well as package naming. 

  > The TC was requested to continue this discussion on list.

  > CONTINUED.


* New ITEM: Ordering of lang ref files 
  * http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/200908/msg00101.html (Eberlein) 

  > Robert: In the lang spec, given that we have a logical grouping of elements, 
  > should we sort them alphabetically or not? 
  > Michael suggests not, but I sent additional level of grouping shortly before 
  > the call. Suggested to sort by doctype and then by doctype order where 
  > possible and by more used versus less used e.g. forcing specialization 
  > elements at the end rather than alphabetical sorting. I feel logical grouping help to 
  > understand what's available and the alphabetical order does not aid 
  > understanding.

  > Jeff requested we also keep the alphabetical list of elements at the back of 
  > the spec doc.

  > DECISION: The TC achieved consensus with Michael's suggestion, which is in 
  > line with Kris's direction.

  > ACTION: Kris to implement this grouping and ordering of elements in the spec.

  > CLOSED.


*** Meeting Adjourned ***