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Subject: Re: [docbook-apps] Alternative to internal entities?



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At 01:50 30/4/04, Michael Smith wrote:
>Wouldn't using a PI such as the following achieve the same effect --
>without requiring any DTD customization?
>
>   <?entity name='wrkngName'?>

Sorta... however, I feel that PIs should be just that - processing 
instructions - and not have any effect on content itself.  In addition, the 
writers who will be working with this system have experience with 
FrameMaker variables and references, and little to no XML experience, so I 
wanted to minimize the number of new concepts they have to deal 
with.  Further, the client wanted to be able to pick the variables from an 
enumerated drop-down list, which tools like XML Spy will let you do for 
attribute values, but not for PI pseudo-attributes.

>Or better yet, so that you didn't need to hard-code your variablerefence
>content into your stylesheets,

Haven't done that (well, except from some *default* values, like 
"corpname"); the stylesheet knows how to find the value of a variable in 
the document content.

>Also, as far as DocBook not really be intended to be used as-is, but
>intended to be customized for specific purposes: that may be the reality
>for commercial organizations using DocBook, but I don't think it holds
>true for the open-source doc authoring community.

You're probably right on that score.  However, this (closed, commercial) 
organization has specific standardization needs that must be met, and that 
includes constraining the authors' choices in ways that vanilla DocBook 
doesn't, as well as capturing some information that vanilla DocBook can't.

~Chris
- -- 
Christopher R. Maden, Principal Consultant, crism consulting
XML-SGML-HTML-DTDs-schemas-XSL-DSSSL-conversion-training-ebooks-B2B
<URL: http://crism.maden.org/consulting/ >
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