Pushing forward on DITA 2.0 item: make @outputclass universal

["Robert D Anderson" <robander@us.ibm.com>]

This has come up a couple times in discussion, and I think it's pretty straightforward, so I'd like to use this as a test case to start trying out our DITA 2.0 proposal process.

That means for now, I'm treating this as a stage 1 proposal: we should make @outputclass universal (the only exception being the usual exception, the <dita> element itself).

In DITA 1.0, the @outputclass attribute was really defined in terms of HTML - it was intended as a hook to use for additional class values that would be mapped through to HTML. This is actually how it was written up in the spec:

"Provides a value that will be added to the HTML class attribute for the associated output element, for use by CSS style sheets. May also be used by other output processes. "

http://docs.oasis-open.org/dita/v1.0/langspec/othercommon.html

With that as the definition, the assumption was that only content elements which generate output have any need for the attribute, which is how it was left off of so many metadata elements.

Over time I think there's been easy recognition that the attribute should not be defined strictly in terms expected HTML use, and it's been used to class elements in all sorts of ways. The LwDITA SC reasonably tried to use @outputclass as a way to sub-class elements for specialization, but ran into trouble because it wasn't available on metadata elements.

At the same time, even in the simple HTML case it's not really reasonable for us as the TC to add an attribute based on what generates output. I've had many cases where I map the metadata to visible HTML output for purposes of review, and other formats we're not aware of may have plenty of reason to make use of outputclass to style metadata.

So with that in mind - I'd like to propose that in DITA 2.0, we ensure that the @outputclass attribute is available with other universal attributes, and I'm happy to carry forward with creating a stage 2 proposal.

Regards, Robert D. Anderson DITA-OT lead and Co-editor DITA 1.3 specification, Digital Services Group
E-mail: robander@us.ibm.com Digital Services Group
11501 BURNET RD,, TX, 78758-3400, AUSTIN, USA