dita — archive

[Su-Laine Yeo]

Hi everyone, Following up to today's phone discussion on whether ditabase should use the loose task model or the strict task model by default: I think it would be very helpful, and in the spirit of ditabase, to ship a version of the ditabase DTD in which the looser task model is allowed. Ditabase is useful for conversion, and so is the loose task model. Actually I can't think of a common use case in which someone would use ditabase and appreciate the stricter task model at the same time. If you're concerned enough about structural purity to use the strict task model, you probably also want to use maps rather than ditabase to assemble your topics. Although people could always create their own version of the ditabase DTD which allows the looser task model, this would be one more item on the very long to-do list for people who are converting to DITA. Tool vendors could create the looser ditabase DTD, but unless all tool vendors give the DTD the same name this would not be a clean solution for adopters, right? At this point I don't have a strong opinion on whether we should keep ditabase.dtd loose, or whether we should tighten ditabase.dtd and add a new DTD called generalDitabase.dtd . Regarding the wording in the language reference that describes