Design for 12017

 

Part of Plans for DITA Open Toolkit 1.5 

Design for item

What user need will be met by this feature?

Users can use the same metadata structure in ditamap as the one defined in topic/prolog while the old format of metadata is still valid. With the same metadata structure in ditamap and topic, users can easily copy the metadata content from map to topic or vice versa by using conref.

What is the technical design for the change?

The change in DITA standard affects two modules in preprocess, conref resolution and move metadata.

Conref which pull content from map to topic is different from that between topics because it doesn't need to specify topic id. Right now conref.xsl can handle this kind of reference but we still need to make sure that it can work between different specilizations.

Move metadata needs to process the new metadata structure in ditamap. Fortunately, the code currently read the metadata from ditamap according to their @class value and doesn't depend on the actual structure of the metadata. However, if the code remains the same, <metadata> will be treated as a type of metadata instead of a metadata container. That will cause <audience> <category> and <prodinfo> to be proceeded in the same way as <keywords>. According to the DITA 1.1 specification, <audience> <category> and <prodinfo> can be cascaded to the sub-topicref while <keywords> cannot. Therefore, the code need to dive into <metadata> and proceed these metadatas separately when it reads metadata from ditamap.

What sections of the toolkit will be impacted by the change?

Conref resolution and move metadata module in preprocess needs to pass verification test. Right now, conref resolution doesn't need to be updated. But the reader of move metadata needs to be updated.

See also

none