Re: DOCBOOK: Markup for definitions

[Bob Stayton <bobs@caldera.com>]

On Wed, Oct 09, 2002 at 02:14:06PM +0200, Joachim Ziegler wrote:
> Suppose I write a sentence like
> 
> "A *process* is a programm in execution."
> 
> The word "process" should be emphasized in both the HTML and the PDF version.
> 
> Later, whenever I speak of "processes", I want to have a link to the 
> definition above (in the HTML version). Moreover, the word "process" should 
> show up in the index.
> 
> What's the correct markup for this? 

There may be more than one way to do this.
A simple way would be:

  A <emphasis id="process.def">process</emphasis>
  <indexterm><primary>process</primary></indexterm>is a programm in execution.

That gives you the emphasis, id for cross reference,
and index entry.  A link to it could be done with:

  Whenever I speak of <link linkend="process.def">processes</link> ...

I thought <firstterm> could be used instead of
<emphasis>, but the FO output of <firstterm> is not
italic, while it is for HTML.  That may be a bug.
Unfortunately, the fo output does not put firstterm
into italic.  I believe that is a bug.

In another approach, if you were putting your definitions
into a glossary, the XSL stylesheets have some significant
machinery for using <firstterm> to link to the glossary.  I
haven't tried using that yet.

-- 

Bob Stayton                                 400 Encinal Street
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