Futures

Future work on specialization by example should enable new features of DITA 1.2, add new output, and enable property policies.

Potential future work includes the following list:

Topic-domain unification

Type modules must be possible to specialize from any shell.

Type constraints

A type constraints file must be added to complement type modules and type shells. Type constraints can restrict element content and attributes without introducing new types, shells, or properties or restrict extension within shells. Examples of constraints as well as the model representation should be possible.

Outputs

Possible future outputs include the following:

• RNG to provide a representation of the module and shell for validation by RelaxNG-aware parsers.
• XSLT to provide stubs for processing instances of the design.
• OWL to provide a representation of the type hierarchy in the Web Ontology language.

Property policies

The ability to create new shells makes it possible to create validated property topics that specify properties for content topics with a separation of concerns. For instance, CSS / FO layout and style properties could be specified with block properties to match <p>, <lq>, and <codeblock> elements, phrase properties to match <ph>, <q>, and <codeph> elements, and so on.