Re: docbook: about paragraphs, cross-references, indexes

[Mike Sangrey <msangrey@BlueFeltHat.org>]

FWIW, I like these suggestions.

Roy.Gardiner@natwest.com said:
> 1) <para>  has no concept of thematic break, meaning they are all
> formatted the same way; in the O'Reilly DocBook, paras are divided by
> white space. I would like to see an attribute allowing the author to
> indicate the importance of the theme change, so that one kind of para
> might get new-line-plus-indent, as in novels and newspapers, another
> would give one line of white space as it does now, another a big chunk
> of white space, and so on 

Another way of handling the above, and I've thought very little about 
this, might be `title-less sections'.  I'm not sure whether this is even 
possible.  The idea is that the section markup would indicate thematic 
breaks.  Sections are recursive so sub-themes could be handled.  I assume 
your statement "attibute...to indicate the importance" would also handle 
sub-thematic content.

Conceptually, theme breaks are not paragraph level things.  It seems to me 
a theme comprises a block of paragraphs--just like a section.

Again, I like what you've said.  Structural information is part of the 
content.
-- 
Mike Sangrey
msangrey@BlueFeltHat.org
Landisburg, Pa.
                        "The first one last wins."
            "A net of highly cohesive details reveals the truth."