OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) TC

The 1.2 language spec topic on the type= attribute says:

" If the type attribute is specified when referencing DITA content, it
should match one of the values in the target's class attribute. "

The example given is then "topic" to indicate a topic or any specialization
of topic.

However, in thinking about this in the context of a map specialization I'm
creating where I want to set default values for type= to indicate a
corresponding topic specialization, it occurs to me that the value should
really be (or at least allow) a qualified type name, e.g. "mytopic/mytopic"
rather than simply "mytopic".

I'm not sure what the current OT does, but I'm wondering if there is any
existing practice or thought on this issue?

If my analysis is correct, I think the topic should indicate that
fully-qualified type names are allowed and preferred. It would probably make
sense that unqualified type names can only refer to standard-defined types
since that's the only context in which they are unambiguous.

Cheers,

E.

----
Eliot Kimber | Senior Solutions Architect | Really Strategies, Inc.
email:  ekimber@reallysi.com 

>It would probably make

>sense that unqualified type names can only refer to standard-defined
types

>since that's the only context in which they are unambiguous.

That makes sense for xref, but I don't
think it's necessary for topicref. On an xref, type="newpara"
might be a link to mytopic/newpara or yourtopic/newpara. But on topicref,
it shouldn't be ambiguous. When a topicref points to a DITA resource, it's
a topic - and the topic's class attribute is always somewhat redundant,
since the name of the element and the name of the specialization package
are the same. 

In other words, on a topicref, type="mytopic"
is no more ambiguous than type="mytopic/mytopic".

Michael Priestley, Senior Technical
Staff Member (STSM)

Lead IBM DITA Architect

mpriestl@ca.ibm.com

http://dita.xml.org/blog/25





Eliot Kimber <ekimber@reallysi.com>

05/22/2009 10:10 AM




To
dita <dita@lists.oasis-open.org>


cc



Subject
[dita] Meaningful Values for type= on
xref and topicref






The 1.2 language spec topic on the type= attribute
says:


" If the type attribute is specified when referencing DITA content,
it

should match one of the values in the target's class attribute. "


The example given is then "topic" to indicate a topic or any
specialization

of topic.


However, in thinking about this in the context of a map specialization
I'm

creating where I want to set default values for type= to indicate a

corresponding topic specialization, it occurs to me that the value should

really be (or at least allow) a qualified type name, e.g. "mytopic/mytopic"

rather than simply "mytopic".


I'm not sure what the current OT does, but I'm wondering if there is any

existing practice or thought on this issue?


If my analysis is correct, I think the topic should indicate that

fully-qualified type names are allowed and preferred. It would probably
make

sense that unqualified type names can only refer to standard-defined types

since that's the only context in which they are unambiguous.


Cheers,


E.


----

Eliot Kimber | Senior Solutions Architect | Really Strategies, Inc.

email:  ekimber@reallysi.com <mailto:ekimber@reallysi.com>

office: 610.631.6770 | cell: 512.554.9368

2570 Boulevard of the Generals | Suite 213 | Audubon, PA 19403

www.reallysi.com <http://www.reallysi.com>  | http://blog.reallysi.com

<http://blog.reallysi.com> | www.rsuitecms.com <http://www.rsuitecms.com>



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On 5/22/09 9:26 AM, "Michael Priestley"