DOCBOOK: Re: Linking in DocBook V5.0

[Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>]

/ Jirka Kosek <jirka@kosek.cz> was heard to say:
| Norman Walsh wrote:
| 
| > Given a PE like this:
| > 
| > <!ENTITY % xlink-optional-simple-link "
| >    xlink:type      (simple)        #IMPLIED
| 
| I think that there should be #FIXED "simple", so one is not forced to
| add xlink:type="simple" to every start tag with link. This will save
| typing, but make all instances of particular element simple link. I'm
| not sure if this is problem, XLink spec. is quite vague in this topic:

I think it would definitely be a problem. A link is a link if and only if
it's xlink:type is simple.

| "It is not an error for a simple-type element to have no locator (href)
| attribute value. If a value is not provided, the link is simply
| untraversable. Such a link may still be useful, for example, to
| associate properties with the resource by means of XLink attributes."

I don't think that would make much sense in our context.

| > 1. Switch. Remove linkend and break everything all at once.
| 
| This is not good approach, IMHO.
| 
| > 2. Allow both in V5 and remove linkend in V6. Stipulating that when both
| >    are present linkend wins (or xlink:href wins, whichever).
| 
| In that case, I'm almost sure that linkend will win and we only shift
| decision of removing it one DocBook version forward. In this light,
| removing linkend in DocBook 5 doesn't sound silly.

Exactly.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>      | Vision is the art of seeing things
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/ | invisible.--Swift
Chair, DocBook Technical Committee |