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Subject: RE: [dita] Keywords in DITA
I don't think the current examples are
necessarily wrong. The keyword element is not intended just for programming
keywords, especially when semantic specializations of keyword are available
such as <apiname>. Given that <keyword> has very little
semantics of its own, and given that specializations of it exist for many
specific cases, coming up with a generic example that isn't more suited
for a specialization is actually pretty hard. Generic search terms from
the text do seem reasonable to me, as an example of when to use <keyword>
specifically rather than one of its specializations.Michael Priestley
mpriestl@ca.ibm.com
Dept PRG IBM Canada phone: 416-915-8262
Toronto Information Development
Thank you. Your description clarifies things.
This is what I would have thought except were it not for the example in
the specification under "keywords".
The following example is metadata from an
installation task:
<prolog><keywords> <keyword>installing</keyword>
<keyword>uninstalling</keyword> <keyword>prerequisites</keyword>
<keyword>helps</keyword> <keyword>wizards</keyword>
</keywords> </prolog>
I would have understood if the example was:
<prolog><keywords> <keyword>class</keyword>
<keyword>if</keyword> <keyword>else</keyword> <keyword>elseif</keyword>
<keyword>assert</keyword> </keywords> </prolog>
Those are keywords in the sense that you define it in your
email.
From: Michael Priestley [mailto:mpriestl@ca.ibm.com]
Sent: Mon 3/7/2005 7:32 PM
To: Paul Prescod
Cc: dita@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [dita] Keywords in DITA
Hi Paul, welcome to the list.
The reason we support keyword in both locations (as well as a bunch of
specializations of keywords) is to allow the same range of semantic specificity
in both places. For example, <apiname> is a type (specialization)
of keyword. If we have an occurrence of an <apiname> in content,
we may also want to index it specifically for search, if the occurrence
is significant. So we add it to the keyword list for the topic. But just
because it is a keyword for the topic doesn't mean it stops being an <apiname>.
In both contexts, being able to distinguish <apiname>blue</apiname>
from <wintitlel>blue</wintitle> is worthwhile. So we support
the same keyword element in both places.
In other words, <apiname> as content and <apiname> as keyword
for search are both still <apiname>s, so it doesn't make sense to
have a different set of elements just because they are processed differently:
their containment context (body or prolog) is enough, and allows
us to infer processing behavior without undermining the common semantics.
Michael Priestley
mpriestl@ca.ibm.com
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