Chris,
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All good questions. Your last question is really the subject of the book I havenât yet written, namely DITA for Practitioners, Vol 2 â
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Some quick answers to your unanswered questions:
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A4.
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The naming conventions are not 100% consistent due to history but in the RNG it should be consistent that *Mod.rng are modules included by shells or by other modules (e.g., commonElementsMod.rng). The use of âDomainâ and âConstraintâ is not 100% consistent, again for no really good reason other than history. We chose not to try to clean this up when doing DITA 1.3 because it would be disruptive to change the names of files people were already familiar with. Maybe for DITA 2 we can bring more consistencyâ
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A5.
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The current RNG converter depends on the TC-style file naming and directory structure but I have a to-do to try to make it a bit more flexible.
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A6.
Â
In general patterns with â.â In them reflect intermediate patterns (e.g., title.cnt) or naming conventions used consistently for all declarations of a given type (e.g., foo.content, foo.attributes, for element declarations). DITA does not use â.â within element type names so there should never be confusion between pattern names and element type names in any OASIS-defined vocabularies (you could use periods in your specializations if you wanted to but itâs not a common practice in XML vocabularies).
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When constructing specializations you should use whatever the specialization base is as a modelâthat will usually get you to the right answer the fastest. But the short answer is that all intermediate patterns are simply conveniences to make it easier to construct complete content modelsâthere is no magic to them.
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A7.
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Carefully? (Ducks for cover)
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Cheers,
Â
E.
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From: DITA Users <dita-users@yahoogroups.com> on behalf of DITA Users <dita-users@yahoogroups.com>
Reply-To: DITA Users <dita-users@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Tuesday, September 18, 2018 at 3:29 PM
To: DITA Users <dita-users@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: [dita-users] Re: Editors that Support RNG Directly?Â
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Hi Eliot,
Â
Here are some Q/As of things I've learned or want to learn. I include my answers only in case they're helpful; my understanding very well could be incomplete or wrong. Please correct my terminology where I've used it wrong. And you might decide that some of these belong in your tutorial running text. And you might decide that some of these aren't really useful at all. :)
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Q1.
Which schema language should I use for DITA configuration - DTD, XSD, or Relax NG?
A1.
In the past, the only choices were DTD and XSD, with DTD being preferred. These days, however, the DITA community is rapidly moving toward Relax NG because it is easier to write and easier to understand. In fact, starting with DITA version 1.3 the "normative" (official) grammar files are written in Relax NG, and the DTD and XSD versions are converted from that.
If you are new to DITA, we recommend using Relax NG. If you have tools that require DTD or XSD, you can use the dita-rng-converter DITA plugin to create DITA-conforming DTD/XSD from Relax NG.
Q2.
Are Relax NG DITA vocabulary files (?) fully supported?
A2.
Most commercial tools, such as Oxygen, fully support Relax NG vocabulary files for content authoring and schema validation. DITA-OT supports Relax NG vocabulary files for transformations but not schema validation yet (plugins notwithstanding).
Q3.
What are the true base elements in DITA that themselves not specialized from anything else?
A3.
The true base elements are those that only have one module/element-name pair in their @class attribute. More specifically, this is all elements defined in Part 1: Base Edition *except* the included domain elements (highlighting, map group, indexing, delayed conref, hazard statement, utilities, DITAVAL reference, classification) and the subjectScheme map and its elements.
Q4.
What is the naming convention used ! by the OASIS vocabulary files? Should I use them for my own files?
A4.
Filenames with "Domain" are domain files.
Filenames with "Constraint" are constraint files.
Filenames with "Mod" are ??? (I myself would like to know the answer as to what these are!)
??? what else is useful here ???
There is no requirement for your own files to follow these conventions; however, it is encouraged for consistency.
Q5.
When I develop my own DITA plugins, do I need to use the same directory structure and catalog file structure as those in the DITA-OT plugins directory?
A5.
??? I don't know the answer ???
Q6.
In the DITA vocabulary files, I see many name patterns with periods in them (ph.content, ph.cnt, ph.element). Is there a convention to these? What do I need to know about them? Do I need to know about them or use them in a certain way when I develop my own vocabulary files? Are there best practices for using them to accomplish certain tasks?
A6.
??? I don't know the answer ???
Q7.
How should newcomers think about schema design in DITA?
A7.
Normally, to design a document schema, you create a schema file that describes the available elements, their attributes, and what can contain what.
With DITA, it's a bit different. You start with this blob of stuff (the standard OASIS elements and attributes), then you extend ("specialize") and trim ("constrain") them to your needs, and you capture all of this kneading into a recipe ("document-type shell"). And while stretching this schema blob, you must always verify that you're stretching it in a way that's permitted; you can't specialize an element beyond the scope of its parent.Â
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