Hi Nancy, just a small tweak to my comments on conref — I believe I said something like:
“- Joe; I've done exactly that thing with topics. But I want to push back
a little on the idea that this can't be done with conref/conkeyref. I've used that for this kind of thing;
also there are CMSs that store individual conreffable elements separately in a DB kind of way. What are issues people have with conref?”
Thanks,
Joe
Joe Pairman | Mekon | Tel: +44-7739-522002 | Mobile: +44-7472-745-063 | Skype: joepairman
From: <dita@lists.oasis-open.org> on behalf of Nancy Harrison <nharrison@infobridge-solutions.com>
Date: Thursday, December 7, 2017 at 07:07
To: "dita@lists.oasis-open.org" <dita@lists.oasis-open.org>
Subject: [dita] Groups - DITA TC Meeting Minutes 5 December 2017 uploaded
Submitter's message
ActionItems:
1. Alan will run a test of publishing the Errata02 document.
2. Kris will post information clarifying the difference between material and non-material changes; e.g., a material change will cause implementation processes to have to change.
3. Bob will look at CN style sheets and revise them as necessary.
4. Robert will look at the HTML style sheets and update them to conform to latest OASIS CN template.
5. Kris will reach out to OASIS to commit to dates for Errata02 public review.
=================================================
Minutes of the OASIS DITA TC
Tuesday, 5 December 2017
Recorded by Nancy Harrison
link to agenda for this meeting:
https://wiki.OASIS-open.org/dita/PreviousAgendas
[meeting cancelled]
Attendance:
Robert Anderson, Carsten Brennecke, Bill Burns, Kris Eberlein, Carlos Evia, Mark Giffin, Richard Hamilton, Nancy Harrison, Alan Hauser, Eliot Kimber, Chris Nitchie, Keith Schenglie-Roberts, Eric Sirois, Daw Stevens, Bob Thomas, Joe Pairman, Don Day
Business
========
1. Roll call
Regrets: Scott Hudson, Tom Magliery, Stan Doherty
2. Approve minutes from previous business meeting:
https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201711/msg00017.html (Nancy Harrison, 14 November 2017 2017)
Kris moved, 2nded by Bob, approved by TC
3. Announcements:
Public review of "Lightweight DITA: An Introduction" opened on 27 November 2017
https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201711/msg00029.html (Chet Ensign)
Lots of last minute manual changes to the PDF and HTML by Kris and Alan
4. Action items
6 September 2016
Kris: Revise subject scheme example topic pulled from errata 01
4 October 2016:
Tom: Work on aggregated minutes for 2005-2011 (IN PROGRESS)
19 September 2017:
Kris: Build errata 02 and ask OASIS to check the cover pages
Kris and Robert: Draft response to Radu's blog post and e-mail to dita-comment
14 November 2017:
Robert: Add grammar file changes to errata document (COMPLETED)
Alan: Ensure that he can work with DITAweb and GitHub repos to have a review of errata 02 document
- Kris; are things set up so we can review errata02?
- Alan; I believe they are, though I haven't done a test posting
- Kris; if you can run a test of publishing the Errata02 doc, that would be good.
- Alan; I'll do that today and repoirt bakc
Joe Pairman: Write up notes from RDFa/DITA issues discussed (COMPLETED)
***ActionItem: Alan will run a test of publishing the Errata02 document.
5. OASIS policy for handling public review comments / What needs to be done for the "Lightweight DITA: An Introduction" review?
https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201712/msg00002.html (Eberlein, 2 Dec 2017)
Kris; for errata, probably stick to already used processes. All SCs that might be putting out work products - Techcomm, L&T
- Alan; can you define material vs. non-material changes?
- Kris; will post that
***ActionItem: Kris will post information clarifying the difference between material and non-material changes; e.g., a material change will cause implementation processes to have to change.
- Robert; the difference is just a bit subjective; there are guidelines, but the TC has to evaluate against those guidelines.
- Kris; we often have to attest as to whether or not there are material changes included; there are fairly clear guidelines from OASIS. But outside reviewers can also claim there are material changes.
- Nancy; there are no formal processes for LwD that exist yet...
- Robert, and it's hard to imagine a 'material' change to a CN.
- Kris; but if as a result of review, someone proposed a change to grammar files. and that was determined to be a material change, that means the corrected CN goes out for another public review, but that review can be a short - 15-day - one.
- Robert; but also, a CN is different frmo a spec. An LwD spec is not yet out, and however many public reviews are needed on the CN, we can keep going on the spec.
- Kris; I encourage the LwD SC to make material changes if they're needed, so we'll have the best final work product we can.
- Robert; with a spec, I'm less inclined to make material changes; not the case with a CN.
- Kris; A spec is meant to be a well-baked product; LwD is new, if it needs to go back for changes, that's fine.
- Carlos; what is the role of the SC in that process?
- Kris; that's actually one of my questions; does the SC want to play an intervening role?
- Robert; the SC will need to weigh in with the TC on any material change; but for trivial stuff, they don't need to waste TCs time; they can just make the change.
- Carlos; I can take responsiblity of the SC part
- Alan; does the SC or the TC 'own' the review?
- Kris; ultimately, TC owns it
- Robert; the question is more from the practical POV.
- Alan; e.g. Jang Graat's comment (https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita-comment/201711/msg00007.html)? Should discussion on that belong in SC or TC?
- Kris; that comment is not about LwD itself, but about what should be in a CN vs. spec vs. not in any official TC document. So discussion should be in the TC.
- Carlos; when we start addressing comments, we'll find quickly what needs to be addressed by SC vs TC.
- Kris; the question is how you want to do it; SC meets every 2 weeks, TC every week, so things can get resolved more quickly in TC, or can go other way.
- Carlos; you're right, the calendar will play a role.
- Kris; is there an SC mtg on 12/11?
- Carlos; yes
- Kris; so you can start looking, and also have SC discussion on how to go forward. Carlos, you're going to need to acknowledge every comment, and you, maybe with me and Alan, will use a DITA topic to maintain the resolution list. We can discuss at SC mtg.
just how you'll respond and publish that.
6. "LwDITA: An Introduction" committee note
Comments received on dita-comment list: https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita-comment/
Informal comments passed along by Carlos Evia: https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201712/msg00009.html
[tabled till after next SC mtg]
7. Committee note style sheets
Manual work by Kris and Alan on 17 Nov 2017
Style sheet changes needed for committee note / editorial points to be aware of (Eberlein, 1 Dec 2017)
Our editorial mistakes, changes needed to style sheets, issues with DITA-OT generated HTML5
https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201712/msg00001.html
summary - see Kris's note to TC
- Kris; part of problem, last time we did CN, OASIS stylesheets were different from now, result of operating with Word templates. we can push back, but there are couple of action items.
1. someone needs to look at stylesheet and see what's being generated on the cover pages vs. OASIS's newest template for CN.
- Bob; I'll do that
- Kris; will that include footer coding and filename coding?
- Bob; yes
***ActionItem: Bob will look at CN style sheets and revise them as necessary.
- Kris; need volunteer for what's happening with HTML output.
- Robert; I can do that.
***ActionItem: Robert will look at the HTML style sheets and update them to conform to latest OASIS CN template.
8. DITA 1.3 Errata 02
Wiki page for DITA 1.3 Errata 02
Errata 02 document with new information architecture (includes Errata 01 content)
https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201712/msg00011.html (Eberlein, 04 Dec 2017)
New proposed schedule
https://wiki.oasis-open.org/dita/DITA-1.3-errata-02-schedule
- Kris; in my earlier proposed schedule, I forgot about the 15-day public review. I need volunteers for building the new big packages, as well as new review volunteers. Bob, can you do the build, or should we push the schedule out?
- Bob; I probabkly can't build till Saturday...
- Kris; a build on 12/11-12/12 would work. review volunteers?
- Nancy; I'll do that
- Bob; are the OASIS requirements in Kavi?
- Kris; they're in our email archives from earlier this year.
- Kris; can TC members do a DITA Web review on Errata02 next week?
- Eliot, Carlos, & Bill Burns will do a DITAWeb review next week once it's built.
- Kris; it's not a really hard thing to review...
***ActionItem: Kris will reach out to OASIS to commit to dates for Errata02 public review.
9. Managing "contextless elements" as for L&T Assessments and Objectives
https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201711/msg00033.html (Kimber, 28 Nov 2017)
https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201711/msg00035.html (Amber Swope, 29 Nov 2017)
https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201711/msg00036.html (David Hollis, 30 Nov 2017)
https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201711/msg00037.html (Rob Hanna, 30 Nov 2017)
https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201711/msg00038.html (Kimber, 30 Nov 2017)
https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201711/msg00039.html (Amber Swope, 30 Nov 2017)
https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201712/msg00000.html (Joe Pairman, 1 Dec 2017)
Eliot gave summary; L&T, in particular the new learning2domain, provides questions, answers and related elements. these are elements that go inside topics; we've discovered that there's a very strong need to manage individual Q&A pieces using maps rather than
conref; conref turns out to be not practical, So we've created things like a topic that contains exactly a single question. There was a discussion of this at the last L&T SC mtg; questions can't be topics, but they need to be handled that way; the basic issue
is that a question doesn't have a title, and DITA topics do have them. Except for the lack of context and title, they could be topics, and they have an internal structure related to the nature of questions. We need to manage them through maps, but they're
not topics... So they're appear to be 3 possible options:
1. extend maps to address elements as well as topics - this is a BAD IDEA, and the TC has already formally rejected it once.
2. codify a type of topic where it exists to contain what you want to use, and a topic title isn't meant to be presented/displayed. That's how we've done it, but it's non-standard. The ideal would be to codify a topic where content is used, but not title and
probably not shortdesc or abstract as well.
3. have a property of a topicref, that says 'ignore the title and other stuff like shortdesc and abstract.
My [Eliot's] preference is to do it with a topic (#2) rather than a topicref (#3).
- Joe; I've done exactly that thing with topics. But I want to push back on claims that this can't be done with conref/conkeyref. I've used that for this kind of thing; I've used conref in a DB kind of way. What are issues people have with conref?
- Eliot; You can use it, but with the current tools, it tends to be a hard sell to authors. It comes down to the fact that tools tend to be optimized for working with maps, not with a large body of conrefs. In modern DITA editors, dealing with 100 topicrefs
works better than dealing with 100 conrefs. Also, if you're dealing with multiple sets of questions, it's harder to work with conrefs in multiple topics vs. working within a map.
- Joe; I get that.
- Robert; in IBM, we have lots of topics where there's a title, but the titles are ignored, mostly in context-sensitive help. So this issue - content that belongs in a topic but without a title - goes beyond L&T questions...
- Eliot; that's right, it applies to any topics where titles are explicitly to be ignored.
12 noon ET close
-- Ms. Nancy Harrison