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Subject: Proposed index range revisions (was Re: [dita] Are indexterm rangesbackwards incompatible?)


Thanks for working up an initial proposal, Paul. I also like the wording - and for suggesting the path towards an inclusive compromise.

I've done some additional thinking overnight, however, and now offer a more systematic approach to the issue.

Proposed changes to existing index range proposal:
  1. Default behavior to remain unchanged from 1.0. Even if you enter an explicit index range with start and end attributes, it will still be rendered as a point index reference to the start page by default.
  2. Range rendering in all identified cases to be turned on by a new optional element contained by indexlist in the bookmap:
ranges (explicit?, topic?, sequences?)
Justifications: 
  1. Ensures backwards compatibility with 1.0 during the time it takes to review all indexterms in your document set and change them to ranges where appropriate - a deliverable might come up while you're in the midst of the change, which is likely to be back burner.
  2. If you don't employ index ranges and a partner does, allows you to easily eliminate the ranges from partner doc in your output.
  3. Allows people migrating book-oriented legacy doc into DITA to bring page ranges along initially, then leave them in but turn them off when the transition to a topic-based, minimalist mode of presentation is accomplished (thanks to lurker Scott Prentice for identifying this need).
  4. Meets JoAnn's most fundamental criterion: The indexer should be solely responsible for determining when a range of pages is used, not have some automatic decision made.  This gives everyone complete control over what ranges do or do not appear in their index.
  5. Locates that control in the DTD, making it most easily accessible to writers.

--Dana


Tony Self wrote:
Your wording seems to entirely agreeable, Paul. My only change would be to clarify what we mean by "end-user". In this recent flurry of messages, some confusion may have been caused by mid-identification of the stake-holders. To me, the people involved are (broadly) the TC members, the tool vendors, the writers, and the readers. By "end-user", I think you mean "writer" (the end-user of the DITA publishing tool).

Tony Self
 

________________________________

From: Paul Prescod [mailto:paul.prescod@xmetal.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, 16 August 2006 10:17 AM
To: Dana Spradley; Michael Priestley
Cc: Chris Wong; dita@lists.oasis-open.org; JoAnn Hackos; Grosso, Paul
Subject: RE: [dita] Are indexterm ranges backwards incompatible?


I propose the following wording:
 
"Index terms in prologs are neither ranges nor points. They are associated with the whole topic. DITA publishing implementations are encouraged to let the end-user choose whether to represent them as page ranges spanning an entire topic or individual pages in an index. Another choice that publishing implementations may wish to provide is whether to collapse multiple continguous page references into a single page range."


________________________________

	From: Dana Spradley [mailto:dana.spradley@oracle.com] 
	Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2006 5:05 PM
	To: Michael Priestley
	Cc: Chris Wong; dita@lists.oasis-open.org; JoAnn Hackos; Paul Prescod; Grosso, Paul
	Subject: Re: [dita] Are indexterm ranges backwards incompatible?
	
	
	I think we're still working up to one Michael.
	
	Do you have a suggestion for how the serious reservations I've expressed with the current state of the proposal could not simply be suppressed, but acknowledged and overcome?
	
	The TC's process seems to have become very win/lose, IMHO - or maybe it was always that way.
	
	--Dana
	
	Michael Priestley wrote:
	


		Dana, do you have a concrete proposal for a change to the DITA 1.1 specification? 
		
		Michael Priestley
		IBM DITA Architect and Classification Schema PDT Lead
		mpriestl@ca.ibm.com
		http://dita.xml.org/blog/25 
		
		
		
		Dana Spradley <dana.spradley@oracle.com> <mailto:dana.spradley@oracle.com>  

		08/15/2006 06:23 PM 

							To
			Paul Prescod <paul.prescod@xmetal.com> <mailto:paul.prescod@xmetal.com>  	
				cc
			Michael Priestley/Toronto/IBM@IBMCA, Chris Wong <cwong@idiominc.com> <mailto:cwong@idiominc.com> , JoAnn Hackos <joann.hackos@comtech-serv.com> <mailto:joann.hackos@comtech-serv.com> , "Grosso, Paul" <pgrosso@ptc.com> <mailto:pgrosso@ptc.com> , dita@lists.oasis-open.org 	
				Subject
			Re: [dita] Are indexterm ranges backwards incompatible?	

		
			
			

		


		I could agree to this compromise, provided the default behavior is as I've outlined.
		
		Then we could do the right thing semantically in the default - but any particular user organization could override it and behave as illogically as they like.
		
		--Dana
		
		Paul Prescod wrote: 
		I don't think we can mandate it, but we can submit the feature request. Given that it is open source, it depends on someone to implement it. You or I could just do it. I would be surprised if anyone would reject such a benign patch (although the default behaviour might be controversial). 
		  
		Can we agree to this compromise rather than continuing with the argument? 
		  
		
________________________________


		From: Dana Spradley [mailto:dana.spradley@oracle.com <mailto:dana.spradley@oracle.com> ] 
		Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2006 12:44 PM
		To: Paul Prescod
		Cc: Chris Wong; JoAnn Hackos; Grosso, Paul; dita@lists.oasis-open.org <mailto:dita@lists.oasis-open.org> 
		Subject: Re: [dita] Are indexterm ranges backwards incompatible?
		
		And I suppose the following switch as well: 

		*	generate-page-ranges-for-ranged-indexterms: Yes/no 

		
		I agree that with such switches available, this issue would go away.
		
		How do we mandate that they be put in the official DITA toolkit?
		
		--Dana
		
		Paul Prescod wrote: 
		The fact that the distinction is "sometimes made" suggests to me that this is another thing to put in the hands of the end user to express however their tool expresses it. One can imagine options to the DITA toolkit (or other publishing engine): 
		  
		generate-page-ranges-for-index-entries-on-adjacent-pages: Yes/no 
		generate-page-ranges-for-entire-topics: Yes/no 
		
		
________________________________

		From: Chris Wong [mailto:cwong@idiominc.com <mailto:cwong@idiominc.com> ] 
		Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2006 11:04 AM
		To: JoAnn Hackos; Grosso, Paul; dita@lists.oasis-open.org <mailto:dita@lists.oasis-open.org> 
		Subject: RE: [dita] Are indexterm ranges backwards incompatible?
		
		"A distinction is sometimes made between continued discussion of a subject (index, for example, 34-36) and individual references to the subject on a series of pages (34, 35, 36). " -- 17.9, Chicago Manual of Style 
		



  


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