Re: [dita] DITA 1.2 Review Comment: Thoughts on topicgroup,navtitle, and locktitle

[Eliot Kimber <ekimber@reallysi.com>]

On 8/25/10 7:02 AM, "Doug Morrison" <dmorrison@dita4all.com> wrote:

>  I think a topicgroup gets its semantic of groupness from:
>  
>  1. its name
>  2. its intent
>  3. the syntax of being parent to a group of child elements.

I disagree. A topicgroup gets its semantic of groupness *from not having a
title*.

In particular, item 3 is not distinguishing: any topicref with child
topicrefs is a group. Likewise, the intent is not a distinguisher because
you can only know the intent by looking at the name (and then knowing that a
specific name has specific rules associated with it).

That's the point I'm trying to make: currently any topicref acts as a group
(does not affect navigation) IFF it has neither a navigation title nor a
bound resource.

So there are only two possible distinguishers for topicgroup:

A. Lack of a navtitle (DITA 1.1)
B. The specific type mapgroup-d/topicgroup (implication of new language in
1.2 trying to explain away unavoidable allowance of navtitle as descendant
of topicgroup)

I think (B) is the wrong thing to do but I will accept that decision if it
is the consensus otherwise.

But let's not pretend that this is anything other than a special case that
privileges topicgroup in a way that no other DITA-defined topicref is
privileged and in a way that no other non-DITA-defined topicref
specialization can be privileged except by specializing from topicgroup.

Also, saying "processors are free to ignore the navtitle of a topicgroup
element" is making it a special case because it means I cannot simply have a
rule that says "if no navtitle no effect on navigation". And it cannot be a
"may" it must be a "must", as in, "topicgroup's with navigation titles MUST
NOT contribute to navigation".

Cheers,

E.

-- 
Eliot Kimber
Senior Solutions Architect
"Bringing Strategy, Content, and Technology Together"
Main: 512.554.9368
www.reallysi.com
www.rsuitecms.com