Re: Suggested change to properties tables

[Eliot Kimber <eliot.kimber@servicenow.com>]

I support this change.

 

Cheers,

 

E.

 

_____________________________________________

Eliot Kimber

Sr Staff Content Engineer

O: 512 554 9368

M: 512 554 9368

servicenow.com

LinkedIn | Twitter | YouTube | Facebook

 

From: dita@lists.oasis-open.org <dita@lists.oasis-open.org> on behalf of kris eberleinconsulting.com <kris@eberleinconsulting.com>
Date: Monday, October 31, 2022 at 9:15 AM
To: DITA Technical Committee (dita@lists.oasis-open.org) <dita@lists.oasis-open.org>
Subject: [dita] Suggested change to properties tables

[External Email]

 

---

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