About the range of indexterm written in topic/prolog/metadata.

[Toshihiko Makita <tmakita@antenna.co.jp>]

Dear DITA TC members,

I recently downloaded the newest DITA1.2 draft dated 15 June, 2010 from 
the following URL:

http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/38368/DITA1.2-CD02.zip

I read the description about range indexterm written in 
topic/prolog/metadata on page 418 (PDF). There are following sentence.

"In the following example, the range begins with the start of the 
topic's title, and covers the entire topic and any sub-topics.
The range ends within the same prolog, regardless of whether <indexterm 
end="acct"/> is specified in the
prolog."

This description limits the range of indexterm from the start of the 
topic's title to the "end of the topic".

However there is following description.

"Now assume that the topic in the previous sample is named acct.dita. 
Ranges defined in a prolog cover sub-topics,
including those nested based on a map; in the following example, this 
means that the range covers all of acct.dita, as
well as procedures.dita and forms.dita:" (*2)

This description *EXTENDS* the end of the range indexterm to the end of 
the forms.dita. It is not a good idea to extend a range indexterm 
written in topic/prolog/metadata to the outside of the topic.

Also I think it is impossible to implement this feature, because if 
stylesheet is processing topic/prolog/metadata, it cannot know where 
topicref is extended to.

In this example:

<topicref href="acct.dita">
   <topicref href="procedures.dita"/>
   <topicref href="forms.dita"/>
</topicref>

The range indexterm written in topicref/topicmeta/keywords/indexterm of 
first topicref can extend the range to the end of forms.dita because an 
stylesheet is processing topicref/topicmeta/keywords/indexterm and it 
can know where the acct.dita ends. So I think the second description 
(*2) should apply to the topicref/topicmeta/keywords/indexterm.

Please reconsider the specification.

Sorry for poor English.

Regards,

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