dita-techcomm — archive

[JoAnn Hackos <bob.thomas@tagsmiths.com>]

I agree completely. We should be able to make that change for the Stage 3 proposal. I know we discussed it and I was positive about including Title.  Do you have to change the inheritance model for this to work? JoAnn Sent from my iPad JoAnn Hackos Comtech Services Inc 710 Kipling Street Suite 400 Lakewood CO 80215 CIDM will be hosting the Content Management Strategies/DITA Europe Conference 2013 in Munich, Germany  November 18-19.  More information at: http://www.infomanagementcenter.com/DITAeurope/2013/index.htm On Oct 22, 2013, at 1:17 PM, "Bob Thomas" < bob.thomas@tagsmiths.com > wrote: Hi, While working on a feature article for the DITA Adoption SC that discusses troubleshooting for DITA 1.3, I have come across a deficiency in the content model for the <cause> and the <remedy> elements. I now believe that <cause> and <remedy> ought to allow an optional <title> element at their beginning rather than relying upon static, stylesheet-supplied strings for labeling. The stylesheet-supplied, string method is sufficient for troubleshooting topics that contain a single cause-remedy pair (simple troubleshooting topics). But, in topics that contain two or more cause-remedy pairs (complex troubleshooting topics), the author is left with no good way to distinguish them from each other through labeling. At a minimum, the titles for the causes need to signal the essence of each cause. You can make a case a title is also needed for remedy in complex troubleshooting topics, whenever remedy appears without an associated cause. For example, a common final fallback would be a stand-alone remedy such as this: <remedy>   <title>Contact technical support</title>   <steps-unordered>     <step><cmd>Contact technical support at either support@foo.com or 800-555-1234</cmd></step>   </steps-unordered> </remedy> I am sorry to raise this objection at this point. However, I don't think that the current model fully supports complex troubleshooting information without this change. Best Regards, -- Bob Thomas +1 720 201 8260 Skype: bob.thomas.colorado Instant messaging: Gmail chat ( bob.thomas@tagsmiths.com ) or Skype Time zone: Mountain (GMT-7)