Re: DOCBOOK: Re: Linking in DocBook V5.0

[Adam Turoff <ziggy at panix dot com>]

On Thu, Nov 15, 2001 at 10:14:20AM -0800, Bob Stayton wrote:
> On the other hand, I appreciate your desire to get out
> of the restraining box of current rendering environments
> like HTML.  There are all kinds of other possibilities for
> processing DocBook XML documents, such as help systems
> and indexing.  Permitting xlink on larger elements opens
> up capabilities beyond the current simple linking
> done today.
> 
> But if it is permitted, I think we have
> to make clear what the processing expectations are.
> We could say that xlinks in block elements are
> permitted but not currently handled by Norm's
> DocBook html and fo stylesheets.  But the markup can
> be added to XML files for other purposes and processing
> of your own design.  This is similar to
> the way role attributes are handled today.
> If some common usage emerges, then perhaps those
> specific changes can be added to Norm's stylesheets.

This is the best idea I've heard yet in this thread.  I still
can't forsee a use case where I would need extended links
(modulo Daniel's issues with Gnome documentation).  However,
failure of imagination isn't a valid reason to stay behind.

So, color me convinced on the value of extended links (perhaps
limited to block elements, if that semantic makes sense), so long
as we (er, Norm) can defer the issue of processing expectations
to another day.  Ditto nested inline simple links.  :-)

If processing such links can be deferred to those who actually
use them, then the added overhead for extended links should be small,
possibly limited to the DTD.

Z.


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