OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) TC

  • 1.  Proposal for Consideration: Default Behavior for List Items

    Posted 04-14-2008 21:11 
    Per the action out of last week's meeting, I submit the following 
proposal for approval by the TC:

"By default, the rendering of list items is not affected the presence or 
absence of an initial paragraph element such that the markup 
  • Item 
text
    •  and 
  • Item text
    •  should be visually 
indistinguishable, all other variables being the same."

The 
       and 
         elements both provide a "compact=" attribute that 
indicates the desire for more or less space between list items.

We also discussed the issue that IBM's pre-OASIS markup design for step 
lists had rules for determining if a given list of steps should be 
compact or not lead to not providing compact= on


  • 2.  RE: [dita] Proposal for Consideration: Default Behavior for List Items

    Posted 04-14-2008 21:31 
    Why are we getting into details of styling in a semantic
markup language standard?  DITA shouldn't dictate to a user 
how their stylesheet has to work.  If we put wording such
as Eliot's into the DITA standard, then we are telling
users that they non-compliant if they write a stylesheet
that styles 
  • Item text
    •  and 
  • Item text
    • 
differently, and I know Eliot is not a fan of having a user's
control over their own data usurped by someone else.

The DITA standard includes DTDs and XSDs, but it does
not include stylesheets, and it shouldn't.  So why should
the spec include styling restrictions?  If a user wants
to write a stylesheet, they should be allowed to have it
do anything they want.  If implementors want to provide
stylesheets as part of their DITA offering, then what those
stylesheets do in terms of such things as paragraphs within 
list items is a quality of implementation issue.

paul

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  • 3.  Re: [dita] Proposal for Consideration: Default Behavior for ListItems

    Posted 04-14-2008 21:38 
    Grosso, Paul wrote:
> Why are we getting into details of styling in a semantic
> markup language standard?  DITA shouldn't dictate to a user 
> how their stylesheet has to work.  If we put wording such
> as Eliot's into the DITA standard, then we are telling
> users that they non-compliant if they write a stylesheet
> that styles 
  • Item text
    •  and 
  • Item text
    • 
> differently, and I know Eliot is not a fan of having a user's
> control over their own data usurped by someone else.

This is a proposal for default style behavior per our discussion over 
the last few months about the fact that the standard needs to indicate 
what formatting defaults are in many cases (as it currently does 
sometimes and sometimes fails to do, as in the case of list items).

This particular case was called out because the current spec is silent 
and the Toolkit implements two different behaviors for the same markup 
in two different plugins. I don't know of any other case where that happens.

Note that my language very purposefully starts with "By default...".

Cheers,

E.

-- 
Eliot Kimber
Senior Solutions Architect
"Bringing Strategy, Content, and Technology Together"
Main: 610.631.6770
www.reallysi.com
www.rsuitecms.com


  • 4.  RE: [dita] Proposal for Consideration: Default Behavior for List Items

    Posted 04-14-2008 21:43 
    













    


    How about something like this:
    


     
    


    The presence or absence of an
initial paragraph element within a list item (<li>Item text</li> vs. <li><p>Item
text</p></li>) SHOULD, but is NOT REQUIRED to, produce similar styling on output.
    


     
    


    I think this is what Eliot was saying, but this version is a
bit shorter, written in a positive rather than a negative sense, and may
address Paul's concern in that it makes it clear that users may choose to adopt
different styling if they wish.
    


     
    


       -Jeff
    


     
    


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  • 5.  RE: [dita] Proposal for Consideration: Default Behavior for List Items

    Posted 04-14-2008 21:46


  • 6.  Re: [dita] Proposal for Consideration: Default Behavior for ListItems

    Posted 04-14-2008 21:47 
    JoAnn Hackos wrote:
> 
> 
> Ok, but that doesn’t address the initial stem sentence before the list.

It was not intended to. I'm only concerned about what the spec should 
say in the specific case of a list item with or without an initial 
paragraph.

Cheers,

E.

-- 
Eliot Kimber
Senior Solutions Architect
"Bringing Strategy, Content, and Technology Together"
Main: 610.631.6770
www.reallysi.com
www.rsuitecms.com


  • 7.  Re: [dita] Proposal for Consideration: Default Behavior for ListItems

    Posted 04-14-2008 21:46 
    Ogden, Jeff wrote:
> 
> 
> How about something like this:
> 
>  
> 
> The presence or absence of an initial paragraph element within a list 
> item ( 
  • Item text
    •  vs. 
  • Item text
    •  ) SHOULD, but is 
> NOT REQUIRED to, produce similar styling on output.
> 

I'm happy with whatever language the editors arrive at. I wasn't 
intending to propose language for the spec, just making a motion to 
record the intent of the TC.

Cheers,

E.
-- 
Eliot Kimber
Senior Solutions Architect
"Bringing Strategy, Content, and Technology Together"
Main: 610.631.6770
www.reallysi.com
www.rsuitecms.com


  • 8.  RE: [dita] Proposal for Consideration: Default Behavior for List Items

    Posted 04-14-2008 23:02 
    I agree with Paul. This might be a slippery slope, where the standard is expected to provide other default styling recommendations. Stylesheet processing belongs outside the standard. I think this recommendation belongs in the OT.

Tony Self




    
                                                
    
					
                                                    

        
                                                
				
    
                                                
    
                                                    
                                                        
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  • 9.  RE: [dita] Proposal for Consideration: Default Behavior for List Items

    Posted 04-15-2008 15:05 
    As a user, I find the default styling recommendations in the language
spec very helpful -- they give me a clear idea of the intended usage of
the elements.  In fact, I wish there were *more* of these
recommendations and examples.

As a neophyte, I struggled with whether to embed 
     inside all my 
  • 
elements.  I thought I must have misunderstood the intended usage, since
the OT processed 
    •  differently than 
  • , where I
had expected them to be processed the same way.  Having this clarified
in the spec would have helped me feel like I wasn't out on a limb, but
that this was a common issue and usage decision that many people have
needed to deal with.

If I decide later that I want to process them differently, I can still
do that.


Seraphim




    
                                                
    
					
                                                    

        
                                                
				
    
                                                
    
                                                    
                                                        
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