RE: docbook: about paragraphs, cross-references, indexes

[Roy.Gardiner@natwest.com]

I had two very helpful replies, thank you.

I am still quite ready to believe that I'm nitpicking. I am also prepared to
offer suggestions for changes to the standard; I have not yet found the
mechanism to do this. Does one simply email Mr Walsh? We need to anyway; Mr
Maier has found a spelling error in TDG (line 27139)   :-)

> Steffen.Maier@studserv.uni-stuttgart.de[SMTP:Steffen.Maier@studserv.uni-st
> uttgart.de]
> 
> "Zone
> 
> The use of Zone implies a spanning index entry. Zone holds the IDs of the
> elements to which it applies. Then IndexTerm applies to the contents of
> the entire element(s) to which it points. If Zone is used, the phyiscal
> placement of the IndexTerm in the flow of the document is
> irrelavant." [TDG]
> 
Yes; but only for entries marking a range of text. TDG also says "A single
point is marked with an Indexterm placed in the text at the point of
reference". This markup: 

<INDEXTERM>
<PRIMARY>DocBook</PRIMARY>
<SECONDARY>Changes for <ACRONYM>V4.0</ACRONYM></SECONDARY>
</INDEXTERM>

occurs in full over 40 times in TDG. Surely there must be a simpler way?

> Jirka Kosek[SMTP:jirka@kosek.cz]
> 
says:

> You can add role attribute to para and modify stylesheet.
> 
> Rendering of xref text is left upon stylesheets. You can very easily
> modify both DSSSL and XSL stylesheets to include page numbers.
> 
Yes (and thanks for showing me how) but a design objective of DocBook is (I
guess) to allow authors to create works using DocBook itself without
modification.  I would like to have different styles of PARA in the
standard.

TDG has many cross-references, none of which have page numbers. This means I
have 2 steps to find anything.  Does an attribute PAGE=YES/NO on XREF break
the 'no formatting' rule of markup too badly? Non-print renderings would
just ignore it anyway.

Roy Gardiner

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