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Subject: Re: [dita] Complexity of bookmap content model
Hi Paul, The decision to allow multiple preface and other types of introductory material was based on user reviews from an one of my early bookmap prototypes. The comment was that users wanted an easy way to change the order of these sections - for example, one group would want a preface before the abstract, and another wants the opposite. They also wanted an easy way to control this - such as flipping the order in the source, instead of using a (still undefined) style document or transform override to set the order. The only way to allow the order to change was to change the whole front matter section to *. Another reason to do it is the one that caused us to allow indexlist* instead of one optional indexlist -- if you want two types of introductory sections that each represent preface material, you should probably specialize both off of preface; however, if we only allow one preface section, you could not include both specialized elements. As for the complex chapter/appendix/part model -- I think most of that carried over from the original bookmap, so I should let the originators speak to that. The same is true for the lack of <frontmatter> and <backmatter> groupings - the original model was: <!ELEMENT bookmap (((%bkbasicinfo;) | (%bkinfo;))?, (%draftintro;)?, (%abstract;)?, (%dedication;)?, (%preface;)?, (%chapter;)*, ( ( (%appendix;)*, (%notices;)? , (%amendments;)? ) | (%part;)* ), (%colophon;)?)> Robert D Anderson IBM Authoring Tools Development Chief Architect, DITA Open Toolkit (507) 253-8787, T/L 553-8787 "Paul Prescod" <paul.prescod@xmetal.com> wrote on 06/12/2006 04:29:05 PM: > Is anyone else concerned about the complexity of this content model? > > <!ELEMENT bookmap (((%title;) | (%booktitle;))?, > (%bookmeta;)?, > ( (%booklists;) | > (%draftintro;) | > (%abstract;) | > (%dedication;) | > (%preface;))*, > (%chapter;)*, ( ( (%appendix;)*, (%notices;)?, > (%specialnotices;)*, (%amendments;)? ) | (%part;)* ), > (%colophon;)?, > (%topicref; | %reltable;)*)> > > I don't mind its size as much as its complexity. > > Even with validating editors like XMetaL, content models with many > alternatives can be confusing. "I put an appendix in and now I can't put > a part in before it. Why not?" > > Also: why do we want to allow multiple abstracts, dedications, prefaces, > etc. > > I could imagine something more like: > > <!ELEMENT bookmap (title, > bookmeta?, > frontmatter?, > chapter*, > part*, > backmatter?, > colophon?, > relationships? ) > > I would expect the elements frontmatter, backmatter and relationships to > be topicheads. > > Paul Prescod >
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