Re: DOCBOOK: A straw proposal for help topics in DocBook

[Michael Smith <smith@xml-doc.org>]

I wrote:
> >>|    So it looks like if we use a Section-like (instead of Chapter-like)
> >>|    content model for Topic, it'll mean that Topics can contain only
> >>|    recursive Sections, not numbered ones (Sect1-Sect5), and that
> >>|    Topics can't contain Refentrys at all (or Simplesect).

Norm wrote:
> >>I am strongly opposed to allowing Topics to contain any form of
> >>sectioning element. They are not part of the sectioning hierarchy,
> >>that's one of the main motivations for creating them (IMHO).

Martin wrote:
> There's some logic there but it would certainly be useful to support some 
> sort of sort of container(s) within <topic> to allow us to seperate out 
> the topic content.

But the content model Norm proposed for Topic is recursive, just like
the one for Section is -- that is, a Topic can contain other Topics,
nested indefinitely. So you could do:

  <chapter>
  <title>How to Drive</title>
  <topic id="1000" role="topic">
      <title>Start to start your car</title>
      <topic role="discussion">
          <title/>
          <para>you use your keys to switch on the engine to make your car 
          go</para>
      ...