[TYPO3-doc] About DocBook 5 Customization

[Thomas Schraitle]

Hi François and others,

>Nice to read you here. Welcome to our community :-)

Thanks for the warm welcome! :-) I hope I didn't intrude too much.


>> Hi Typo3 Doc Team,
>
>BTW, it's "TYPO3", not "Typo3". I'm sure you're used to such finer 
>details ;-)

Ohh, shame on me! I'm deeply sorry.
Note to myself: Don't write mails at night-time.


>> [...]
>Currently I don't see any need to introduce new elements. What we have 
>been discussing up to now as far as customization is concerned is about 
>removing unneeded elements to simplify editors' lives. Such changes seem 
>pretty innocuous, right?

Yes, that shouldn't be a problem. Removing elements can be done without
any harm. Plus you do not need to customize your DocBook stylesheets.


>> Another issue, not necessarily a problem of DocBook customization itself, is
>> the tension between simplicity and flexibility. Let me give you a short
>> example which can also be problematic when removing elements. DocBook supports
>> two types of section elements:
>>
>>   * sect1, sect2, sect3, ...
>>   * section (recursively nested)
>
>Good that you raise this point, as it was on my list of questions to you ;-)

Hehe, you're welcome. :)


>As fas as I can tell, the advantage of sect1, sect2, etc. is that they 
>are logically nested and that it would be possible to limit the level of 
>nesting.

Right.


> However "section" is more flexible and I don't think that we 
>need to "hard-code" a nesting limit (it's more like a guideline such as 
>"If you need too much nesting, maybe you should restructure your 
>document"). What's your advice? You seem to be rather in favor of 
>"section"? If we go for sections, can we then safely drop sect1 et al.?

Well, both has their strengths. That decision depends usually on your 
documents.
If you need to rearrange and reuse lots of your sections, the "section"
element will be probably more favorable. If you know in advance this will
never be the case, you can stick to sectX.


> [...]
>Your input is more than welcome.

Thanks! :)


Tom