OASIS DocBook TC2

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["Nancy (Paisner) Harrison"

  • 1.  ["Nancy (Paisner) Harrison"

    Posted 06-18-2001 17:36
    Hi Nancy,
    
    I agree that topics are more chapter-like (or even section-like) than
    book-like. My thinking was that
    
      <set>
       <book>...</book>
       <book>...</book>
       ...
      </set>
    
    would make sets of books whereas
    
      <set>
       <topic>...</topic>
       <topic>...</topic>
       <topic>...</topic>
      </set>
    
    would make a set of topics. I may have been foolishly trying to avoid
    introducing a new top-level 'helpset' element since it seemed very
    much like set.
    
    
    


    Hi Norm,
    
    [by the way, I tried to send this to the docbook-tc list, but it was sent back
    as unauthorized. If you think the perspective is useful, can you forward it to
    the other docbook-tc members?  thanks.]
    
    
    Looking at the minutes for the TC meeting of May 22, I noticed that Norm
    proposed adding a Topic element as an alternative to a 'book' element.
    
    At Rational, our help system is made up of a set of help files, each of which
    has multiple topics.  I'd be more inclined to add Topic to the structure at the
    chapter level, with a container element at the book level called, perhaps, a
    'helpset' or something like that.  I think the level of organization of a topic
    is much closer to a chapter than to a book.
    
    This is an issue that we at Rational are currently dealing with, since we want
    to use our customized version of DocBook both for print manuals (of which we
    have many) and online help (of which we also have a lot) and we want to be able
    to reuse the material across media where appropriate.  So far, for our online
    help, we're simply using a book as a container for each help file, and using
    chapter for each topic.  But we'd rather, of course, have a DTD that is
    actually designed with online help a bit more in mind.
    
    Just my $.02, and thanks for the work you folks are doing maintaining DocBook.
    
    
    Nancy 
    
    ________________________
    Nancy (Paisner) Harrison
    Rational Software
    Lexington  MA
    nancyh@rational.com