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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
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