DOCBOOK: Re: listitem

["Matt G." <matt_g_ at hotmail dot com>]

>>I  want to add a  title  inside <listitem>,but  there is  no such
>>child element  inside listitem.So, how  can  i  proceed for it?.
>>Can  any one help me.
>
>Most of the time, <variablelist> with <term> is good enough.

I think I've just run into exactly the problem: I have a <variablelist>, but 
I want to be able to nest more structure inside the <listitem>, for each 
entry!  Here's an sample of the information I'd like to be able to provide 
about each variable:
* descriptive name
* type
* units
* description
* usage predicates (conditions which must or must not be true for
  it to be used)
* valid values (may be a range, value, or list of ranges
  and/or values)
* dependencies of field values on things like values or ranges of
  values of other fields and system state

It seems like <fieldsynopsis> gets closer to what I want, but it seems 
awkward to use as a child of a <variablelist>, since the variable name would 
need to be specified twice.  Furthermore, <fieldsynopsis> doesn't allow me 
to describe many of the above aspects.

I believe <listitem> needs to allow structural hierarchy underneath it.  I 
don't understand why it was decided not to allow <section> as a child, for 
example, but I also want a finer-grained structural element (described 
below).

Finally, is there any markup (I'm thinking along the lines of a block 
element) that will allow me to specify a named property?  For example, I'm 
imagining something along the lines of:

<par>
blah blah blah
</par>
<namedproperty>
    <propname>Variable Type</propname>
    <propval>unsigned int</propval>
</namedproperty>
<par>
foo bar baz
</par>

For my application, my processing expectations are that the output would be 
something like this:

blah blah blah
Variable Type: unsigned int
foo bar baz

...with "Variable Type:" possibly appearing in bold.  I don't care about 
line spacing, but I do expect that <namedproperty> would be preceded and 
followed by at least one newline.  I think a <formalpara> might almost do 
the trick, if it had an option to treat <title> as a heading, instead of the 
first sentence.


Matt


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