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Subject: comments on indexing wording in dita 1.1 draft
Here are my comments on the latest language spec regarding indexing. index-see --------- The example here is wrong in at least a couple ways: 1. this is the index-see writeup, but the example refers to index-see-also 2. the text (and Contains/Contained by sections) clearly indicate that index-see(-also) should be within an indexterm, but the example has the indexterm within the index-see-also Due to these errors, I have not been able to give a careful review to the rest of this section. index-see-also -------------- The first sentence of this section refers to index-see instead of index-see-also. The example refers to index-see instead of index-see-also. Most of the body of this section is just a reference to the index-see section, so I have not been able to give a careful review to this section. index-sort-as ------------- See my question in another email thread: http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/200607/msg00076.html I'll try to suggest wording once I have an answer to that question. index-range-start ----------------- The second paragraph currently reads: Page ranges indicate where the index entry refers to an extended discussion that goes over a number of pages. This would typically be manifested as a page range like 34-36. This is distinguished from individual references over consecutive pages (34, 35, 36). A page range is indicated by a pair of <indexterm> elements, one with an <index-range-start/> marker and another with an <index-range-end/> marker. I object to the statement that individual references must result in 34, 35, 36. That is not what most of our users want. They specifically expect sequential page references (each generated by a pointwise indexterm) to be merged in the resulting index. Besides, this is a style issue, and the DITA spec should not be specifying this. Also, this wording doesn't really define "pair of <indexterm> elements" clearly. I suggest we replace this paragraph with something like: A page range can be used to generate an index entry for an extended discussion that goes over a number of pages. A page range is indicated by a "matching range pair" of <indexterm> elements. Two indexterm elements form a "matching range pair" if their textual contents are identical, and the first one (in document order) has an <index-range-start/> child and the second one has an <index-range-end/> child. Even this wording doesn't really cover the case if <indexterm>cheese<index-range-start/> <indexterm>sheeps milk cheeses <indexterm>pecorino<index-range-start/></indexterm> </indexterm> </indexterm> is supposed to form a matching pair with <indexterm>cheese<index-range-end/></indexterm> but I'll wait to get an answer to my earlier email at http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/200607/msg00075.html before trying to tackle this. ---- The third paragraph currently reads: Due to the potential for orphaned range markers during map assembly, page ranges cannot span topics at the topic level. Index ranges that start within a topic must end in the same topic, excluding nested topics. Topic spanning can only occur at the map level by inserting indexterm elements into map metadata. I think I understand what we mean by "span topics" and "topics at the topic level", but I don't understand just what we mean by "excluding nested topics". Along with the rewording I suggest above, I'm suggesting something like the following to replace this text (though it's not complete since I don't know how to translate "excluding nested topics"): Every index-range-start must be "properly paired" with an index-range-end. For and index-range-start and index-range-end pair to be "properly paired", the index-range-start's parent indexterm element and the index-range-end's parent indexterm element must be a "matching range pair" of <indexterm> elements. Furthermore: 1. if the index-range-start occurs within a map file, it is properly paired with its index-range-end only if the index-range-end occurs within the same map file. 2. if the index-range-start occurs within a topic, it is properly paired with its index-range-end only if the index-range-end occurs within the same topic [excluding nested topics]. I'll try to complete my suggested rewrite when I get an answer to my email at http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/200607/msg00078.html --- The fourth paragraph currently reads: When page range markers are not properly paired, the following recommended processing should result in few surprises: * If there is an indexterm with a range start marker but does not have a corresponding indexterm that ends the range, it should just generate a single page number reference in a book as if there was no range start marker. * On the other hand, an indexterm that terminates a range but has no corresponding indexterm that starts the range should be dropped entirely from output. With my previous rewording, we can simplify this paragraph. I also have an issue with the second bullet point above that I've outlined at http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/200607/msg00079.html Here is my suggested rewording that reflects my suggestion in that email: It is an error if an index-range-start is not "properly paired" with an index-range-end. An implementation should recover by ignoring any improperly paired index-range-start or index-range-end. ---- The fifth paragraph currently reads: An <indexterm> element in a topic prolog lies outside of the content flow. It essentially points to the topic itself. Consequently, page ranges in a topic prolog have no meaning. If a processor encounters either an <index-range-start/> or <index-range-end/> element in a topic prolog, it will ignore them. The phrase "points to the topic itself" is ambiguous. That could still mean "a range starting at the start of the topic and ending at the end of the topic" (which might make sense, but I thought we decided otherwise). I suggest we replace this paragraph with something like: An <indexterm> element in a topic prolog is defined to be an indexterm referencing the beginning of the topic itself. Furthermore, index-range-start and index-range-end elements within an indexterm within a topic prolog are ignored. paul
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