OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) TC

Re: [office] Proposal for lists/numbered paragraphs

  • 1.  Re: [office] Proposal for lists/numbered paragraphs

    Posted 03-18-2003 19:33
    [Fourth (!) attempt--OASIS server bounced my first 3 attempts. pbg]
    
    At 17:26 2003 03 16 +0100, David Faure wrote:
    >On Thursday 13 March 2003 21:10, Daniel Vogelheim wrote:
    >
    >Very interesting reasoning and development of the issue.
    >
    >> [...]
    >> The next suggestion (Michael) uses that as base, but adds an 'escape' 
    >> [i.e. declaring an individual paragraph to be listed at some level] to 
    >> take away some of the burden from the filter people
    >> [...]
    >> As a general guideline, I would say that 'clean' XML solutions are to be 
    >> preferred _if_ they can represent existing documents.
    >
    >I think this raises the following question: shouldn't discontinued lists,
    >(like the numbering of tables, pictures, etc.) be modelled with the
    >above solution? This would be, I think, "cleaner" in terms of structure
    >than the current OO solution (of autonumbered variables).
    
    No, see, that's my problem with this unstructured escape business:
    once you start, people see everything as "labeled paragraphs."
    
    >1. pict one
    >2. pict two
    >1) table one
    >2) table two
    >3. pict three
    >(1). equation one
    >3) table three
    >(2). equation two
    >4. pict four
    >
    >Each paragraph belongs to one of the 3 discontinued lists going on here
    >(picts, tables, equations).
    
    No, not at all.  These are not lists any more than numbered titles
    of sections and chapters are lists.
    
    >I think this would even allow some more features than simple autonumbered
    >counters, like being able to refer to a given picture twice without getting
    >the number increased twice. It would also give all the features available for
    >list counters (without having to redevelop or refactor the code for auto-
    >numbered variables).
    
    And would destroy any hope of being able to map this into appropriate
    structure for either a DTD such as DocBook or for any XSL processing.
    
    
    >For such lists there is obviously no "XML-structured list" solution. 
    
    Right--because these aren't lists.
    
    >However
    >the closest XML-clean solution is simply to associate each paragraph with
    >a list style.... and to set the continue-numbering flag.
    
    Unless I'm misunderstanding things (which is a distinct possibility), 
    I completely disagree.
    
    paul