RE: [dita] references to ditabases without an explicit topicid

["Grosso, Paul" <pgrosso@ptc.com>]

Robert,

Thanks for the response.  Unfortunately, I'm not sure
it gives me a complete answer to my question.

What should a topicref with an href to a file with no 
specific topicID specified do when the file is a ditabase 
document that contains more than one unnested topic?  

Your answer makes it clear what should happen as far as 
linking goes.  But I'm still unclear on what should happen 
about including the topics in, say, a PDF. 

paul

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robert D Anderson [mailto:robander@us.ibm.com] 
> Sent: Thursday, 2006 July 13 14:58
> To: dita@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: Re: [dita] references to ditabases without an 
> explicit topicid
> 
> Hi Paul - maybe somebody else can give a more authoritative 
> answer, but from my experience...
> 
> The toolkit does not break files up when creating XHTML. So, if you
> reference "file.dita", or "file.dita#first-topic", or
> "file.dita#last-topic", the full file will generate XHTML. 
> Once the spec
> fully explains how to use the chunk attribute, I expect that 
> the toolkit
> will add support for that attribute as a way to break apart 
> topics when
> generating XHTML.
> 
> The main impact of that "file name equals first topic" 
> assumption, at least
> today, comes about when linking. If you reference 
> "file.dita", then any
> generated links are added after the body of the first topic. 
> If there are
> sub-topics, they appear below those links. Any generated 
> links to this file
> will pull the title from the first topic in the file. This is 
> true whether
> it's a <dita> mixed file, or of a single topic type. So, this 
> demonstrates
> the behavior that links to/from "file.dita" are treated as 
> links to/from
> the first topic.
> 
> If you give a topic ID in your reference, then links will be 
> placed after
> the body of that topic, regardless of what type of file it is 
> or what else
> is included. Generated links to this file will get the title from the
> specific topic.
> 
> In terms of conref - my understanding is that conref="file.dita" is
> supposed to go to the first topic in the file. In a <dita> 
> mixed file, this
> means the first child of <dita>. In a single-type file, this 
> will bring in
> that main topic and anything nested inside it. This 
> clarification was made
> after we wrote the conref code, and I haven't thought about 
> it in a long
> time, so I can't say for sure if the toolkit code was updated 
> to work this
> way. If not, we should open a bug report on it.
> 
> Does that help?
> 
> Robert D Anderson
> IBM Authoring Tools Development
> Chief Architect, DITA Open Toolkit
> (507) 253-8787, T/L 553-8787
> 
> "Grosso, Paul" <pgrosso@ptc.com> wrote on 07/12/2006 02:29:41 PM:
> 
> > Our developers are trying to understand what it means
> > to have a reference to a ditabase from a topicref in
> > a map where the href value does not include a fragment
> > identifier (e.g., "path" rather than "path#topicid").
> > Specifically, is just the first topic picked up or
> > all the topics?
> >
> > The DITA 1.0 Architectural Spec doesn't seem to
> > address this.
> >
> > In the DITA 1.0 Language Specification, there are
> > a few references that seem to address this issue:
> >
> > In the Language Spec. in the descriptions for the
> > conref attribute on topic, concept, reference, and
> > task elements it says in part:
> >
> >  During output processing, a lookup process will pull the
> >  contents of the first topic into the calling topic markup
> >  that has the conref attribute.
> >
> > And a bit later in the same description it says:
> >
> >     Target elsewhere in the same file:
> >         conref="#topicid"
> >
> >     First topic in a different file:
> >         conref="filename.xml"
> >
> >     Specific topic in different file:
> >         conref="filename.xml#topicid"
> >
> > And in the href description for the link element in a
> > topic, it says:
> >
> >    Target elsewhere in the same file:
> >         conref="#topicid"
> >
> >     First topic in a different file:
> >         conref="filename.dita"
> >
> >     Specific topic in different file:
> >         conref="filename.dita#topicid"
> >
> > There is nothing specific about this one way or another in the
> > other href descriptions for the elements topicref and xref.
> >
> > Using the DITA Open Toolkit, for html output, only one link
> > appears in the index.html file, but all of the topics from
> > the ditabase were included in the other .html file.
> >
> > Can someone confirm what is the expectation when one encounters
> > an href to a ditabase without a fragment identifier on a topicref.
> > Should just the first topic from the ditabase be included or
> > should all of the topics from the ditabase be included?
> >
> > paul
>