[docbook] DocBook Technical Committee Meeting Minutes: 19 May 2004

["Bob Stayton" <bobs at sagehill dot net>]

DocBook Technical Committee Meeting Minutes: 19 May 2004
=============================================================

The DocBook Technical Committee met on Wednesday, 19 May 2004 at
05:00p EDT (02:00p PDT, 21:00GMT, 22:00BST, 23:00CEST, 06:00JST+,
02:30a India+) for 90 minutes.


1. Roll call
Present: Steven Cogorno, Gary Cornelius, Adam Di Carlo, Paul Grosso,
Nancy Harrison, Scott Hudson, Mark Johnson,
Jirka Kosek, Larry Rowland, Mike Smith, Bob Stayton,
Norman Walsh

Absent: Dick Hamilton

2. Accepted the minutes[1] of the previous meeting

3. Next meeting: 16 June 2004.  No regrets.

4. Review of the agenda.
   Treat 5c as an agenda item.

5. Review of open action items

    a. Mike to provide a better proposal for choicelist markup.
       CONTINUED.
    b. Mike to reconsider the annotation problem and post his thoughts.
       CONTINUED.
    c. Dick to examine the use of alt, possibly as part
       of the annotation discussion.
       COMPLETED.
    d. Norm to summarize the OASIS requirements document for
       the document management system and the ensuing discussion.
       OBSOLETE.
    e. Norm to complete the reference pages for the
       new 4.3 elements on the docbook.org site.
       NEARLY COMPLETED.
    f. Norm to publish flattened version of the 4.3 XML DTD.
       CONTINUED.
    g. Norm to post a reference to the paper written
       with Sebastian Rahtz regarding TEI.
       COMPLETED by Jirka:

http://www.idealliance.org/papers/dx_xmle04/papers/03-08-01/03-08-01.html
    h. Norm to produce a draft spec of 5.0.
       CONTINUED.
    i. Norm to ask Karl about creating stable OASIS URIs.
       CONTINUED.
    j. Norm to investigate and propose where biblioref should
       be permitted.
       COMPLETED.
    k. Norm to suggest how to implement subscript and superscript
       inside gui* (maybe not using %smallcptr.class.mix).
       COMPLETED.
    l. Dick to determine if RFE 541444 "caption in
       mediaobjectco" is closed.
       CONTINUED.

5c.  Alt text.

This item originally was requesting adding a way to specify
alt text for equations, but the discussion covered the use
of alt text in other places as well.

Larry (speaking for Dick) suggested looking at version 5.0
for adding an annotation feature, including merging footnote
into an annotation with a footnote role attribute.
Using textobject was one suggestion, but it can contain
markup that might not work in an HTML alt value.

One proposal is for an alt element that can contain only
#PCDATA, and no markup.  This would restrict it to plain
text on data entry for use in an HTML attribute value.

Mike thought that defining an element based on the restriction
of current browsers was bad design.  Why not let the processor
convert it to plain text if needed?

How many places would we need alt-like text?

Nancy pointed out two basic needs for alt-like text:
a) Limited-capability browsers.
b) Accessibility for individuals with disabilities (section 508).

ACTION: Larry to look into section 508 accessibility issues
with DocBook elements.

ACTION: Norm to contact Dave Pawson about accessibility issues.

6. Where is biblioref permitted?
   %xref.char.class is smaller than %link.char.class

Norm proposed adding the new biblioref element wherever
the xref element is permitted, since it is a specialized
version of xref.  ACCEPTED.

7. RFE 698026: cannot embed <superscript> within <guibutton>

Norm proposed explicitly adding subscript and superscript to each
gui* element's content model.  This was instead of adding
it to the smallcptr.char.mix parameter entity, which would
have added it to many elements.  ACCEPTED.

8. DTD versions 4.3.1 and 4.4.

Since we have several element and attribute changes, the
committee decided to create a DTD version 4.4 instead
of just a bug fix release 4.3.1.

ACTION: Bob to review minutes for approved changes.

ACTION: Norm to create a beta 4.4 DTD for the next meeting.

9. Request for canonical URIs for Docbook DTDs. [2]
    (carried forward from last month)

Continued.


10. Review of Requests for Enhancement

a.  698026 cannot embed <superscript> within <guibutton>

(see agenda item 7 above).

b. 950206 Nested bibliodivs

The group was not sure this request was within the scope
of DocBook usage.

ACTION: Adam to ask the submitter for more information.

c. 955428 Add wordsize effectivity attribute (added to agenda)

Sun and HP have found a need for a separate effectivity
attribute to indicate computer processor word size.
Most felt this was within the docbook domain, but there
was concern about adding yet another global attribute, and
if it was too specialized.
There was also a desire for a better name.

ACTION: Bob to add to next month's agenda.

11.  Official release of other DocBook modules.

ACTION: Norm to create official releases for Simplified DocBook 1.1,
MathML, and others that are dependent on DocBook 4.3.

*************************************
Meeting adjourned.
*************************************

     The following RFEs are awaiting action items

      413389 Enhance METHODNAME and VARNAME (Norm, generic linking)
      431411 RFE 70: add generic linking capability (Norm)
      522552 Add title attribute to <ulink> element (Mike, annotations)
      541444 caption in mediaobjectco (closed?) (Dick)
      565637 Associate non-inline image with link (Norm, generic linking)
      574880 Add annotation element (Mike)
      623524 (Re)Consider "choicelist" markup (Mike)

     The following RFEs are identified as V6.0 or later

      531851 Remove inline person name elements
      532088 Remove RevHistory from qandaentry
- ---

[1] http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook-tc/200404/msg00008.html
[2] http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/docbook/200404/msg00032.html




Bob Stayton
Sagehill Enterprises
DocBook Consulting
bobs@sagehill.net




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