Re: Strong disagreement with limitation of change bar definition

Jim Melton <jim.melton@acm.org> wrote:
-------------------------------------------------
"The reason that it's a major problem is very simple:
When a large, complex document containing hundreds or
thousands of lists, many of which have dozens or
scores of list items, one absolutely does not want to
put a change bar besides an entire list in which a
single list item has had a single word changed."
--------------------------------------------------

Jim, I don't see the 2WD as requiring this, and I
think the example you subsequently gave demonstrated
that.  We are currently allowed to place the
fo:change-bar-begin under the first fo:list-item-label
or fo:list-item-body where the text changed.  Then to
place the fo:change-bar-end under the last
fo:list-item-label or fo:list-item-body that changed. 


This is because the content models of both
fo:list-item-label and fo:list-item-block contain
"%block;" which will allow you to use the change bar
FO's.  So it doesn't appear you would have to
highlight the entire list.


Jim Melton <jim.melton@acm.org> also wrote:
-----------------------------------------------------
It is certainly most convenient when editing the XML 
sources of such a document to put the change-bar-begin
immediately before the XML element tag (e.g., <li>)
that starts the list item and the change-bar-end
immediately following the end of that element (e.g.,
the tag </li>).
-----------------------------------------------------

I think I agree with you here.  Your example given was
as follows:

<list>
<li>This is the first bullet.</li>
<start-change/>
<li>This is the second bullet.</li>
<end-change/>
<li>This is the third bullet.</li>
</list>

Which, to make more XSLT-able and to better illustrate
the point, I would probably rewrite in this manner:

<list>
<li>This is the first bullet.</li>
<change-bar>
<li>This is the second bullet.</li>
<li>This is the third bullet.</li>
<li>This is the fourth bullet.</li>
</change-bar>
<li>This is the fifth bullet.</li>
</list>

Creating a template that matches on "change-bar", puts
in a fo:charge-bar-begin at the beginning, calls
another template to render bullets 2-3-4 just as 1 & 5
are, and then puts in an fo:change-bar-end at the end
of the change-bar template appears clear/natural to
do.

(Otherwise, you'd have to do tests for the 2nd and 4th
LI, to render them differently to incorporate the
fo:cbb/:cbe, and only be able to use the normal LI
template for the 3rd LI.)

However, I would encourage the SG to consider just
adding a prose sentence to the fo:list-block content
model allowing for fo:change-bar-begin and -end to
exist within it, before considering anything more
drastic document-wide.  If it just turns out, over
time, that only a few more FO's would need to have
such a sentence added (fo:cbb and fo:cbe, by being
listed in the "neutral" container, are currently
allowed most everywhere as it is) doing so would
probably be less destructive to the document as well
as the design of current implementations.

Thanks,
Glen

Received on Monday, 7 March 2005 14:53:31 UTC