There's a section before both prereq and context called shortdesc or
abstract - stuff that people need to evaluate before they decide whether
the task is worth doing can be there, followed by prereqs so they know
whether they can do it, followed by context that sets the stage for doing
the actual steps, then the actual steps.
It's easy to forget shortdesc/abstract because they're outside the body,
but they're an important part of the model.
Michael Priestley
Lead IBM DITA Architect
http://dita.xml.org/blog/25
"JoAnn Hackos" <>
01/08/2008 10:40 AM
To
"Christina Hardy" <>,
<>
cc
Subject
RE: [dita-comment] Order of elements within a taskbody
Christina,
You can easily change the output order of the two elements during
processing. The order in which you write something does not need to be
the order in which you render the elements.
JoAnn
JoAnn T. Hackos, PhD
President
Comtech Services, Inc.
710 Kipling Street, Suite 400
Denver CO 80215
303-232-7586
-----Original Message-----
From: Christina Hardy [mailto:]
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 8:32 AM
To:
Subject: [dita-comment] Order of elements within a taskbody
We've just started using the Frame DITA EDD and have the following
comment on the DITA spec v 1.1:
It doesn't make sense to put the Prereq section before the task context,
given that the context should be providing the information that the user
needs to determine whether they should perform that task.
For example, if I'm trying to decide whether I need to back up my
system, I need the information that helps me decide whether a backup is
required or not (the context) before I need to know that I have to get
some type of media to back up to (the prerequisite).
I note that there seems to have been some discussion around this by
Eliot Kimber around November 27, 2007, who is requesting something
similar - i.e., that the two elements be allowed to occur in any order.
No resolution, it seems, but I'd like to second the request.
Thanks,
Christina Hardy
Technical Writer, Nakina Systems
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