OASIS Mailing List ArchivesView the OASIS mailing list archive below
or browse/search using MarkMail.

 


Help: OASIS Mailing Lists Help | MarkMail Help

dita message

[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]


Subject: [dita] some index-range-* questions


Hello everyone,

Could someone please state as simply as possible (for those like me who
aren't XML design experts)exactly that the problem is?

I think I understand Chris's point about asking authors to add an
attribute and an ID every time they want an index range. Indeed awkward.


What I don't understand is what exactly is the problem we're trying to
solve. I know there is concern about having to remember the end tag and
having to repeat the exact text of the index terms, sans spaces or other
extraneous bits. 

If we can all understand the problem in the same way, that will help
facilitate this afternoon's meeting.

JoAnn

JoAnn T. Hackos, PhD
President
Comtech Services, Inc.
710 Kipling Street, Suite 400
Denver, CO 80215
303-232-7586
joann.hackos@comtech-serv.com
joannhackos Skype
www.comtech-serv.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Wong [mailto:cwong@idiominc.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2006 7:41 AM
To: Yas Etessam; dita@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [dita] some index-range-* issues

Yas, you are on record as favoring the attribute proposal for
implementation purposes. I'm wondering why the existing proposal is hard
to implement. They are all XML, after all, so internally you would just
reduce them to some ID. 

<indexterm>foo<indexterm>bar<index-range-start/></indexterm></indexterm>


And 

<index-range-start
subject="foo:bar">foo<indexterm>bar</indexterm></index-range-start>

Both reduce to (inventing my own pseudo-code):

index-range-start(foo:bar)

The test would be to make sure index-range-end(foo:bar) also exists. Why
is one syntax harder than the other? The FO plugin for the DITA Open
Toolkit already detects mismatched index page ranges today.

The other issue that both you and Paul G are eminently qualified to
address is the usability issue. The proposed change to index ranges is
essentially a switch from element/content-based authoring to an
element/@attribute approach. You essentially require that the author
come up with an ID to assign to an attribute. Existing XML authoring
tools simply don't make attribute editing/viewing easy. Everything I've
heard about user friendly XML authoring says to avoid authoring
attributes (which are usually invisible), let alone coming up with IDs
for those invisible attributes, let alone authoring matching pairs of
those invented IDs for those invisible attributes. Won't this approach
be unacceptably unfriendly to your users?

Chris


-----Original Message-----
From: Yas Etessam [mailto:yas.etessam@xmetal.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2006 9:26 PM
To: dita@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [dita] some index-range-* issues

We can avoid cross-topic ranges by having some guidelines that users
shouldn't be creating orphaned range tags into their topics. Paul G's

new markup proposal will create XML with enough information that
implementors could warn users when they've got orphaned tags. Even
though the DTD can't prevent the orphaned tags, XML editors could
theoretically warn users about that scenario.


In terms of what we want to support, it doesn't make much sense to
modify DITA to accommodate a 'poor indexing practice' if the best
practice is to simply show the start page. In terms of technology, it
wouldn't be difficult to add some type of "range" attribute on an
indexterm within topicmeta to indicate to some output process to include
both the start/end pages but the real question is "should we"? JoAnn
seems to be suggesting that we should try to encode best practices
within our data model as opposed to being overly accommodating.

- Yas Etessam


________________________________

From: JoAnn Hackos [mailto:joann.hackos@comtech-serv.com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2006 2:47 PM
To: Dana Spradley; Grosso, Paul
Cc: dita@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [dita] some index-range-* issues



Dana,

You're echoing my thoughts, reflected in this earlier memo.

 

Perhaps the additional confusion here is moving across topics. It would
seem better to avoid cross-topic indexing ranges completely. Would that
still be an option? 

 

I think the current state of the proposals in both cases tries  to
accommodate poor indexing practices that ignore the usability of an
index for actual readers. The simplest method is to give the page number
only for the first page of a longer item, letting the reader decide when
he has had enough. Some indexers use ff (folios or numbers of pages)to
indicate a longer discussion, beginning on a page, such as 356ff with
the ff in italic. There is something problematic, it seems, to have page
ranges that span topics, given our case for the standalone nature of a
topic. 

 

Anyway -- just a few thoughts on the philosophy behind the technical
debate.

JoAnn

 

 

JoAnn T. Hackos, PhD
President
Comtech Services, Inc.
710 Kipling Street, Suite 400
Denver, CO 80215
303-232-7586
joann.hackos@comtech-serv.com <mailto:joann.hackos@comtech-serv.com> 
joannhackos Skype

www.comtech-serv.com

________________________________

From: Dana Spradley [mailto:dana.spradley@oracle.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2006 12:34 PM
To: Grosso, Paul
Cc: dita@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [dita] some index-range-* issues

 

Even after this morning's discussion, I like Paul's idea - although I
personally wouldn't allow mixed content in index-term-start, but would
wrap the top-level indexterm in an indexterm element.

On the other hand, what is an index range supposed to mean when you come
across one in an index? 

I always thought it meant that's where an extended discussion of that
topic occurs in the book.

DITA being a topic-oriented architecture, it would seem more appropriate
to put indexterms that apply to the entire topic somewhere in the
metadata for that topic - and only construct index ranges for those.

--Dana

Grosso, Paul wrote:



I'm resending this email to the list since it never made it.
I have deleted some parts that are no longer at issue.
I hope to follow up with another email with another proposal.
 
Issues
======
 
The currently proposed index-range-* elements are just
empty "flags" that get put inside an indexterm element.  
But it is not necessarily clear what this means in the 
case of nested indexterms.
 
For example, per my best understanding, one way to indicate 
a page range for my "pecorino" example would be markup such 
as the following (where the comments just indicate what pages 
each indexterm falls on):
 
. . .
<!-- page 22 -->
<indexterm>cheese
  <indexterm>sheeps milk cheeses
    <indexterm>pecorino<index-range-start/></indexterm>
  </indexterm>
</indexterm>
. . .
<!-- page 24 -->
<indexterm>cheese
  <indexterm>sheeps milk cheeses
    <indexterm>pecorino<index-range-end/></indexterm>
  </indexterm>
</indexterm>
. . .
 
But what if the <index-range-start/> is placed elsewhere
in the first indexterm, such as:
 
<!-- page 22 -->
<indexterm>cheese<index-range-start/>
  <indexterm>sheeps milk cheeses
    <indexterm>pecorino</indexterm>
  </indexterm>
</indexterm>
 
Is that equivalent, does it mean something else, or is it
an error?  (My best guess is that it should be equivalent.)
 
What about the following:
 
<indexterm>cheese<index-range-start/></indexterm>
. . .
<indexterm>cheese<index-range-end/>
  <indexterm>sheeps milk cheeses
  </indexterm>
</indexterm>
 
Since the first is an index reference for "cheese" and
the second is one for "cheese;sheeps milk cheeses", my
best guess is these two do not constitute a matched pair.
 
What about the following:
 
<indexterm>cheese<index-range-start/>
  <indexterm>sheeps milk cheeses<index-range-end/>
  </indexterm>
</indexterm>
. . .
<indexterm>cheese<index-range-end/>
  <indexterm>sheeps milk cheeses
  </indexterm>
</indexterm>
 
Is the first indexterm a range start or range end
(or just an error)?  If it is a range start, does 
it end immediately, or is its range-end ignored, 
and the range is ended by the subsequent indexterm?
 
None of this is made clear in the current writeup.
 
Also, I think this is very confusing and error-prone
for users.
 
Potential solution
==================
 
Rather than having empty index-range-* elements that
magically redefine their parent to have different
semantics, I think it would be preferable to have a 
specialization of indexterm (or just another element) 
that can be used to indicate the start of a range--so 
we would write something like:
 
<index-range-start>cheese
  <indexterm>sheeps milk cheeses
    <indexterm>pecorino</indexterm>
  </indexterm>
</index-range-start>
 
to start the "cheese--sheeps milk cheeses--pecorino" range.
 
While in theory we could then have an analagous 
index-range-end element with the identical nested
indexterm content, I think that is another mistake
in the current proposal.  The idea of creating
matching pairs by having to have identical content
has already been pointed out as a translation
nightmare, but when you start to consider nested
indexterms, it's an even worse error-prone mess, 
both for the user and the implementors.
 
Instead, I would add an NMTOKEN attribute to both
index-range-start and index-range-end, and have
index-range-end be an empty element that just 
refers back to the start:
 
<index-range-start subject="pecorino">cheese
  <indexterm>sheeps milk cheeses
    <indexterm>pecorino</indexterm>
  </indexterm>
</index-range-start>
. . .
<index-range-end subject="pecorino"/>
 
The "subject" attribute would act like a sort of
id/idref, but I've avoided really using IDs, because
then if you have two ranges that discuss "pecorino",
you couldn't reuse the id="pecorino". 
 
paul
  




[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]