Suggested change to properties tables

[kris eberleinconsulting.com <kris@eberleinconsulting.com>]

There has been a “hack” associated with properties table since early DITA days, to account for the fact that simple tables did not allow spanning. This hack lead to statements like the following:

“When a single property type takes multiple values, authors can create additional property elements and use only the <propvalue> and <propdesc> elements for each successive value.”

The hack has never been supported well in editors (or processors), and now that simple tables permit spanning, it seems like a good time to get rid of it. This would involve the following:

• Minor changes to the spec
• Additional content for the “Migrating to DITA 2.0” committee note

The advantages to getting rid of the “hack” are the following:

 

• Better support in editors (no need to implement varying support for <properties> and <simpletable>
• Consistency in spec (no need to document exceptions)
• Simpler stylesheet work (no need to implement varying support for <properties> and <simpletable>
• Clean up of technical debt

 

Best,

Kris

 

Kristen James Eberlein
Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee
Owner, Eberlein Consulting LLC
kris@eberleinconsulting.com

Skype: kriseberlein; voice: +1 (919) 622-1501