From: Michael
Priestley [mailto:mpriestl@ca.ibm.com]
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 11:34
PM
To: Ogden, Jeff
Cc: dita
Subject: RE: [dita] referencing a
bookmap from a map
Hi Jeff,
Was
this the earlier example in question?
map
title
topicref to bookmap
topicref to leaningbookmap
It
didn't explicitly address TOC and index behaviors, so I'm going to poke a
little more. Is your indexing process already scoping by containing element (ie
if the index is part of the learningbookmap, then it shouldn't include index
entries for bookmap, even if they're part of the same map)? Or is the indexing
process resolved before the topicrefs are used to combine the hierarchy?
Michael
Priestley, Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM)
Lead IBM DITA Architect
mpriestl@ca.ibm.com
http://dita.xml.org/blog/25
"Ogden, Jeff" <jogden@ptc.com>
06/15/2009 10:50 PM
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To
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Michael Priestley/Toronto/IBM@IBMCA
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cc
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"dita"
<dita@lists.oasis-open.org>
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Subject
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RE: [dita] referencing a bookmap from a map
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Michael asked:
> Returning
to the questions of my previous notes - if I fed to your processors a
normalized
>
DITA map that consisted of three concatenated bookmaps, each with their own
indexing and
>
TOC behaviors defined, how would your processors handle them? That's behavior
that is
>
certainly not defined in the spec, because it is a content model that is not
achievable by
>
following the spec.
The
simple answer is that it works just fine. The example I gave in an
earlier message was real.
The
more complicated answer is that if the specialized topicref elements are
“styled”, then we use them as is. If they aren’t
styled, we generalize back to more basic elements if the base element is styled
and so on until we find a styled element or we run out of base elements.
This is driven by the styled or unstyled nature of the elements and not
based on which element is the referencing and which is the referenced element.
We use this same approach for the specialized map to specialized map case and
for the generic map to specialized map case. In fact we use this approach for
styling all elements from maps or topics. The key thing is that we start
out with the more specialized elements and only work our way back to the more
general elements as necessary. Of course it doesn’t work if you start
with a generalized element to begin with.
-Jeff
From: Michael
Priestley [mailto:mpriestl@ca.ibm.com]
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 7:42 PM
To: Ogden, Jeff
Cc: dita
Subject: RE: [dita] referencing a bookmap from a map
Hi Jeff,
For others following the discussion:
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/24910/IssueNumber12055.html
>I want the DITA TC to make our expectations explicit when a generic map
references a
>specialized map (or a generic topicref references a specialized topicref).
I hope we don’t
>end up just saying that this behavior is undefined or implementation
dependent, but even
>that would be better than just being silent or ambiguous about what the
expectation is.
>
>I am happy with the behaviors prescribed in 12055.
>
>I don’t think that the behaviors prescribed in 12055 always give
results that conform to
>the expectations of the referencing map’s DTD or schema. And that is
fine with me.
>But in my view this weakens the arguments that say that we should always
generalize
>the top level elements in the generic to specialized case to ensure that
they conform.
I don't think it does weaken the argument. We can always define specialized
behaviors for specialized elements. The question is what is the safest behavior
to define as the default for unspecialized elements that have no other
behavior.
>And my thinking on the question of references from generic to specialized
maps has us
>maintaining as much information as we can as part of the
“processing” steps so that that
>information is available during the “styling” steps. This
allows users to make their own
>choices about what it is they do or don’t expect and how they want to
“style” any
>unexpected cases.
Returning to the questions of my previous notes - if I fed to your processors a
normalized DITA map that consisted of three concatenated bookmaps, each with
their own indexing and TOC behaviors defined, how would your processors handle
them? That's behavior that is certainly not defined in the spec, because it is
a content model that is not achievable by following the spec.
I respect the instinct to preserve semantics rather than discard them. However,
if the preserved semantics can trigger processing rules that will result in
broken output, it seems irresponsible to preserve those semantics without some
kind of indication from the user that specialized behavior is being engaged. An
indication like, for example, the creation of a specialized referencing
element.
Michael Priestley, Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM)
Lead IBM DITA Architect
mpriestl@ca.ibm.com
http://dita.xml.org/blog/25