DOCBOOK-APPS: xreflabel

[Jeff Beal <jeff dot beal at ansys dot com>]

Title: Personal Stationery

In "The Definitive Guide", our only piece of documentation on the xreflabel attribute seems to be: " holds text to be used when a cross reference (XRef) is made to the element."  It seems that the stylesheets use the xreflabel and only the xreflabel for an xref when it encounters one, ignoring any labels generated for the target element.

 

I would prefer it if the xreflabel were only used as a replacement for the title in a cross-reference.  For example, if I have in my document:

 

<figure id="fig1" xreflabel="Short Title">

 <title>Really, really, long but necessarily descriptive title</title>

 <graphic/>

</figure>

 

And I create an xref to this element, I would like to have "Figure 13.2: Short Title", not "Short Title".  (Assuming that the gentext template for a figure in the xref template were "%n: %t" instead of "%n"

 

In other words, I think that the xreflabel should only be picked up when the gentext template mechanism encounters a '%t'.  I don't think the xreflabel should override the gentext template as it does now.

 

I'm certain that I can make the necessary customizations for us, I'm just wondering if this idea makes sense and if the default behavior should change.  Any thoughts?

 

Jeff Beal

Tools Specialist

ANSYS, Inc.

(724) 514-3150