Sample assembly 2

[Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>]

A few random questions. Apologies if these were covered in my absence.

| <assembly xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook";>
|   <info>
|     <!-- Example DocBook assembly for a document set using modular source. --></info>
|   
|   <resources xml:base="file:///./source-repository">
|     <!-- This resource set is for the XIDI document source. -->
|     <resource xml:id="xidi.overview" fileref="xidi-overview.xml">
|       <!-- Overview of the XIDI system and the XML build environment. -->
|     </resource>

I get that resources nest, but xidi.overview should be empty,
shouldn't it? I wouldn't expect to allowe both fileref *and* content.

|   <!-- Another resource collection from a different source location -->
|   <resources xml:base="http://svn.repo.corp.com/repos/common-source";>
|     <!-- This resource set is for shared source across document projects.  -->
|     <resource xml:id="tutorial.overview" fileref="tutorial/overview.xml"
|       grammar="dita">
|       <!-- Describes how to use the controls on the tutorial viewer.  From a
|         DITA collection -->
|     </resource>

Does grammar="dita" imply that the content of that
tutorial/overview.xml is a literal DITA map? If not, what does it
imply?

|   <!-- Description of a help system for the project -->
|   <structure xml:id="xidi.help.system" renderas="helpsystem">

What are the possible values of renderas and what do they mean?
(And I agree with the other comments that 'renderas' is probably not
the right name.)

|     <module renderas="helpnode: sys-toc.html">

Structured attribute values? Couldn't we say

  <module renderas="helpnode" uri="sys-toc.html">

or something like that instead?

|     <module resourceref="xidi.overview" renderas="helpnode: xidi-overview.html">

Random thought: resourceref or linkend?

|   <structure xml:id="user.guide">
|     <title>XIDI User Guide</title>
|     <toc/> 
|     <toc role="figures"/>
|     <toc role="tables"/>
|     <module resourceref="ug.intro" renderas="preface"/>

So ug.intro is defined as:

    <resource xml:id="ug.intro" fileref="user-guide-intro.xml">

what's the expected content of user-guide-intro.xml? Is it allowed
to be a <chapter> or <section> or <topic> and renderas is supposed
to make the system pretend that it was <preface>?

That strikes me as a completely different kind of processing. I'd want
to think carefully about what that mapping meant, when it applied, and
what happens when it is absurd (<setindex> renderas "procedure").

It really sounds like we're thinking of applying some sort of
transformation to the source before including it. If that's what we
mean, I wonder if we can really keep it so simple that we don't end up
inventing our own transformation language.

If we really want to talk about allowing transformations, I start to
think about assembly documents as some sort of XProc pipeline
extensions or something.

That's quite a different direction than I thought we were going.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>      | Klein bottle for rent; enquire
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/ | within.
Chair, DocBook Technical Committee |

PGP signature