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Subject: Re: [docbook] theorems and similar things


On Tue, 2004-09-14 at 21:40, maria jones wrote:
> On Tuesday 14 September 2004 07:39, Wolfgang Jeltsch wrote:
> <snip>
> >
> > What I want is this:
> >
> >     Theorem 5 (Fermat)  If n is a positive whole number...
> >
> > Thereby, "Theorem 3.5 (Fermat)" should be set in bold font or similar.
> >
> > Theorems usually don't occur consecutively but normally interleaved with
> > other text.  Their number often consists of the chapter number and a number
> > which is unique in the respective chapter.  If no chapters are used, the
> > chapter number won't be present.
> >
> > These things are all very different from ordered lists.
> >
> > Is it really true that DocBook doesn't provide adequate handling of
> > theorems?
> >
> > Wolfgang
> 
> Docbook is more worried about a proper document structure, not the visual 
> representation of the content per se. Generally, if you construct the 
> document correctly utilizing the elements available; the document will lend 
> itself to a very visual appealing representation.
> 
> Your problem is that the child elements won't be contained within the same 
> parent. Which renders it completely invalid. I would encourage you to change 
> the structure of your document to follow the elemental relationships of 
> Docbook. 
> 
> However, the only workaround that i can think of is to utilize section 
> elements in your situation. You would need to set the element title as the 
> number schema. This doesn't allow for automatic sequential numbering by the 
> processor.
> 
> i.e.
> <section>
> <title>3.5 Theorem</title>
> ....
> <section>
> 
> Sorry. Maybe someone else here with more experience may be able to help you.
> Thomas

No, this isn't the right way to do it.  In mathematical texts, theorems
and the like are interleaved with paragraphs.  Structurally, they're
very similar to DocBook's formalpara.

Wolfgang, ideally, you'd want to extend DocBook for this purpose.  I've
actually considered writing such an extension (MathBook?) before, but
I've never gotten around to it.  Then extension itself wouldn't be very
difficult.  Just define some new elements (theorem, lemma, corollary,
proposition, axiom, definition, proof), give them basically the same
content model as formalpara (except you probably want to make titles
optional), and add them to %local.para.class;.

You would also have to extend whatever processing system you're using to
handle these extensions.

--
Shaun




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