RE: [relax-ng-comment] annotations: am I straying too far?

[Robert Koberg <rob@livestoryboard.com>]

Thanks Michael and James,

Makes perfect sense. It covers everthing I need.

-Rob

> -----Original Message-----
> From: James Clark [mailto:jjc@jclark.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 03, 2002 8:45 PM
> To: Robert Koberg; relax-ng
> Subject: Re: [relax-ng-comment] annotations: am I straying too far?
> 
> 
> 
> > I use RNG Schemas to build property forms and drive WYSIWYG editing (I am
> > loving it!). In so doing I am making up my own annotations for the GUI
> > and for documentation.
> 
> That's exactly the way annotations are intended to be used.
> 
> > The "RELAX NG DTD Compatibility Annotations" shows a limited set of
> > options.
> 
> These are just some standard annotations you can use if you want and they 
> meet your needs.  They are not at all intended to be exhaustive.
> 
> > I was wondering if there was an extensibility mechanism planned
> 
> The extensibility mechanism is in RELAX NG itself, rather than in RELAX NG 
> DTD Compatibility.  The latter takes advantage of the former.
> >
> > For a simple example, I want to give a descriptive label and rollover
> > description for attributes in a properties form:
> >
> >   <rng:define name="title.attr">
> >     <rng:attribute name="title">
> >       <a:attr label="Title">
> >         <a:description>A text title</a:description>
> >       </a:attr>
> >       <rng:data type="token"/>
> >     </rng:attribute>
> >   </rng:define>
> >
> > Am I going to be in trouble by doing this or is it a reasonable thing to
> > do?
> 
> It's reasonable.
> 
> > Also, why does the annotation need to be a child?
> 
> You can put your annotations anywhere you like (that is allowed by RELAX 
> NG).  However, it can make things difficult for applications that want to 
> deal with RELAX NG generically and want to handle annotations if different 
> annotations have a different relationship to the RELAX NG element that they 
> semantically apply to (e.g. if some wrap and some are children).  For 
> example, the compact syntax works best if child annotation elements 
> semantically apply to the parent RELAX NG element.
> 
> > I would prefer to wrap
> > some definitions in annotations so I can group them for documentation
> > purposes.
> 
> That's fine, though you might consider putting the annotation as a child of 
> an rng:div that wraps the definitions.
> 
> James
>