Should <linktext> be a specialization of <titlealt>?

[Chris Nitchie <chris.nitchie@oberontech.com>]

I'm (finally!) working on my Stage 3 proposal for the titlealts improvements and I've hit an unexpected snag. The plan, as of Stage 2, is to move <navtitle> and <searchtitle> into their own 'alternative titles' domain, specialized from the new base <titlealt> element. The problem is the content model of <topicmeta>, which currently includes:

 

        <optional>
          <ref name="navtitle"/>
        </optional>
        <optional>
          <ref name="linktext"/>
        </optional>
        <optional>
          <ref name="searchtitle"/>
        </optional>

 

Note that <linktext> is nestled there in between <navtitle> and <searchtitle>, which means that simply pulling them out and replacing them with <titlealt> won't work:

 

        <zeroOrMore>
          <ref name="titlealt"/>
        </zeroOrMore>
        <optional>
          <ref name="linktext"/>
        </optional>

 

Now, any existing document that contains <searchtitle> after <linktext> will be invalid, because that ordering - which used to be required - is no longer allowed.

 

There are two solutions to this. One would be to allow zero-or-more <titlealt> elements both before and after <linktext>. The other is to make <linktext> a specialization of <titlealt>, along with <navtitle> and <searchtitle>.

 

The former feels messy and wrong. I think the latter makes sense. Its placement in the current grammar suggests that <linktext> is of a kind with the other two. And the <linktext> element specifies text to use instead of the title for links, so semantically it would make sense. One side-effect of this, however, would be the appearance of <linktext> inside the topic <titlealts> element. I'm inclined to think that's OK, but it is a change.

 

None of this was included in the Stage 2 proposal, so I'd like to know what others think.

 

Thanks,

 

Chris

 

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