----- Original Message -----
From: "Steven Cogorno" <>
To: "Michael Smith (tm)" <>
Cc: <>
Sent: Friday, October 27, 2006 10:21 AM
Subject: Re: [docbook] Add topic element to DocBook?
> Our documents are structured with conceptual and task based
> information interspersed. Here's an example:
>
>
> Troubleshooting Installation Issues (chapter)
> Initial Installation Issues (sect1)
> [introductory text here]
> Disk-Related Issues (sect2)
> To Check IDE Disk for Bad Blocks (task)
> Using GRUB on X86 Platforms (sect2)
> To Use Live Upgrade with GRUB (task)
> [etc.]
>
> The tasks and conceptual information related to that task are
> presented together. This is not possible in the current DocBook
> implementation of Task.
>
> In this particular example, the tasks could be contained within the
> sect3. But, that pushes the task based information (which our system
> admins tell us is the most important content) down too deep in the
> hierarchy. This is also awkward for the reader because the document
> ends up having section titles that serve only to satisfy the
> structure, not to convey information.
But you could meet this need with <sect2 role="task">, couldn't you?
While that may be less convenient for your authors than an element
named <task>, I haven't been convinced that it is necessary to distort
the hierarchical structure of DocBook to accomodate this specialized need.
You could also easily customize DocBook to add a task (section) element
and remove the task (block) element. Do you have requirements to
use only uncustomized DocBook?
Bob Stayton
Sagehill Enterprises
DocBook Consulting
