Re: [docbook] Add topic element to DocBook?

[doug <doug.duboulay@gmail.com>]

On Friday 27 October 2006 16:51, Michael(tm) Smith wrote:
> doug <doug.duboulay@gmail.com>, 2006-10-27 16:31 +1000:
> > I was trying to use DocBook to document a hierarchical datastructure.
> > I tried to use <section> elements for every node and <simplesect> for
> > grouping various aspects of the descriptions of each node (which worked
> > well for chunking). It wasn't really a very nice fit though because for
> > branch nodes the simplesect descriptions precede the sub section children
> > nodes, which is I believe, a violation of the schema.  So for my purposes
> > it would be nice if <topic>s allowed both section and sub topic children,
> > in the form:
> >
> >     <topic>
> >       <section/>
> >       <section/>
> >       <topic>
> >          <section/>
> >          <section/>
> >            <topic>
> >              <section/>
> >              <section/>
> >            </topic>
> >            <topic>
> >               <section/>
> >               <section/>
> >            </topic>
> >            ...
> >
> > Unless I misunderstand the envisaged content model?
>
> I read your use case, but I don't see how mixing topic and section
> as above would help. It's not clear why you'd want to do the above
> instead of just nesting either section all the way down. Or topic.

Basically, from the point of view of publishing, it is preferable 
to chunk on the datastructure nodes, i.e. the topics, rather than
the sections, which may be things like descriptions and examples of
the node useage. I guess there are semantic distinctions between 
the topics and the sections.

If all the topics were sections, there would be little to distinguish
what is currently the second section from what would be the the 
third section (i.e. the first subtopic).

> Anyway, your example doc instance would not be valid according to
> the proposed content model. By design.

So close, and yet so far :-)