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Subject: RE: [dita] Feedback from Mary McRae


With regards to the override IBM uses for the tutorial specialization - I'm
certain that can be applied here to create next/previous links that take
you directly from the first topic to the last. That said - it's not a "Oh,
just apply that style" sort of thing - it would require some amount of new
coding and testing. I'm not really sure how much at this point. In other
words, if this is a "stop ship" requirement, I need to know as soon as
possible so that I can get started adapting that code to the spec.

Robert D Anderson
IBM Authoring Tools Development
Chief Architect, DITA Open Toolkit


                                                                           
             "Bruce Nevin                                                  
             (bnevin)"                                                     
             <bnevin@cisco.com                                          To 
             >                         "DITA TC"                           
                                       <dita@lists.oasis-open.org>         
             05/28/2010 10:42                                           cc 
             AM                                                            
                                                                   Subject 
                                       RE: [dita] Feedback from Mary McRae 
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           




> departures from how we've done things previously and
> arguably counter-intuitive to DITA principles.

Insofar as it conflicts with 'DITA principles', the counter to this is that
this spec should exemplify what it specifies and the recommendations of the
Adoption TC. This is obviously not true of all OASIS standards, but clearly
appropriate for a standard that is effective on documentation and is
applied to the documentation of the standard itself. It is that recursive
self-application that should exempt DITA from some across-the-board
generalizations. Fortunately, we're not bedevilled with small minds in
OASIS, so we should be able to avoid a foolish consistency. (That said, it
applies equally to clinging to "how we've done things previously" without
such warrant.)

    /B

From: Kristen James Eberlein [mailto:kris@eberleinconsulting.com]
Sent: Friday, May 28, 2010 10:04 AM
To: DITA TC
Subject: [dita] Feedback from Mary McRae

Hi, fellow TC members.

We got feedback from Mary McRae about the draft of the DITA 1.2 spec
yesterday. I've added Mary's comments to a Wiki page, to make them easier
to read -- and to make it easier for us to track our progress in fixing
issues:

http://wiki.oasis-open.org/dita/CD01

If you browse through the page, you'll see that we are left with four main
areas of work or negotiation:
      Need for a namespace document
      (PDF) Stylistic improvements, to better align it with OASIS templates
      (footers, styles for various levels of titles)
      (PDF) Need to fix text overruns in tables
      (XHTML) Mary has requested changes from how the DITA 1.0 and DITA 1.1
      specs were issued:
            Number all topics with section and subsection numbers
            Remove link previews generated from <shortdesc> elements, to
            remove duplication
            Ensure that all topics contain a link to the "Next" topic in
            the reading order
I've requested feedback from Mary about which issues need to addressed
before we can issue the spec for public review. I sincerely hope that she
will permit us to finish refining our PDF styling during the public review.
However, the first and second changes requested to the XHTML output call
for more serious reflection, as they are departures from how we've done
things previously and arguably counter-intuitive to DITA principles.

Thoughts from other TC members?

The third XHTML item either already is effectively handled -- the URL at
the bottom of each topic takes the reader back to the appropriate bookmark
for the topic in the TOC -- or could be addressed by an override that IBM
uses for their tutorial specialization.

Best,

Kris

Kristen James Eberlein
Principal consultant, Eberlein Consulting
Secretary, OASIS DITA Technical Committee
Charter member, OASIS DITA Adoption Committee
www.eberleinconsulting.com
+1 919 682-2290; keberlein (skype)





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