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Subject: Revised Equation Domain Proposal
After consulting with Design Science we have agreed that the following are requirements for equation markup: 1. It must be possible to have block equations within paragraphs. In STEM writing equations often function grammatically as part of a sentence, even when they are block equations. 2. It must be possible for authors to signal that an equation is or is not numbered. Further, it must be possible for authors to specify the number when automatic numbering is not appropriate. We determined based on standard practice, published writing guides, and general common sense, that it would never be appropriate to number an inline equation. Requirement (1) means that it must be easy to change an equation originally markup up as inline to being marked up as block and visa versa. Given that we cannot provide an attribute to do that, the easiest solution is to have two different element types that can both occur in contexts where block equations would be appropriate (note that there are places where you'd only ever want inline equations, such as titles and title-like contexts, so there is not a requirement for block equations to be allowed everywhere inline equations are allowed). Given this agreement, I would like to propose the following revisions to the equation domain proposal: 1. Continue to have <equation-inline> specialized from <ph> 2. Continue to have <equation-figure> specialized from <fig> 3. Change the specialization base of <equation-block> from <p> to <div>. This allows <equation-block> to occur both within <p> and as a peer to <p>. By being allowed within <p> it means authors can easily change <equation-inline> to <equation-block> while still having the option to have block equations as peers to <p> elements (just as <image> may occur within <p> or as a peer to <p> in many contexts). 4. Add a new element type <equation-number> as an optional first child of <equation-block>, which should allow basic phrase content (in case you need to apply some highlighting to part of the number or something) and have the following meaning: - When present with empty content, indicates that the equation should be numbered with a generated number. The rules for generating equation numbers, as for all numbered things in DITA, are processor-specific. - When present with non-empty content, the content is used as the number and presented with the equation, typically to the right side of the equation within parentheses, vertically centered within the vertical extent of the equation. I have verified that <div> both may occur within all required contexts (in particular, within <fig> so it can be used within <equation-figure>) and allows the same elements as allowed by <equation-inline>. I believe this is the smallest change we can make to the original proposal and continue to satisfy the requirements for equations as we currently understand them. Cheers, E. ————— Eliot Kimber, Owner Contrext, LLC http://contrext.com
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