-----Original Message----- From: Eliot Kimber [mailto:ekim...@reallysi.com] Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2010 9:06 AM To: Doug Morrison Cc: dita; Robert D Anderson; Bruce Nevin (bnevin); Nitchie, Chris Subject: Re: [dita] DITA 1.2 Review Comment: Thoughts on topicgroup, navtitle, and locktitle

On 8/25/10 7:02 AM, "Doug Morrison" <dmor...@dita4all.com> wrote:

I disagree. A topicgroup gets its semantic of groupness *from not having a title*.

In particular, item 3 is not distinguishing: any topicref with child topicrefs is a group. Likewise, the intent is not a distinguisher because you can only know the intent by looking at the name (and then knowing that a specific name has specific rules associated with it).

That's the point I'm trying to make: currently any topicref acts as a group (does not affect navigation) IFF it has neither a navigation title nor a bound resource.

So there are only two possible distinguishers for topicgroup:

A. Lack of a navtitle (DITA 1.1) B. The specific type mapgroup-d/topicgroup (implication of new language in 1.2 trying to explain away unavoidable allowance of navtitle as descendant of topicgroup)

I think (B) is the wrong thing to do but I will accept that decision if it is the consensus otherwise.

But let's not pretend that this is anything other than a special case that privileges topicgroup in a way that no other DITA-defined topicref is privileged and in a way that no other non-DITA-defined topicref specialization can be privileged except by specializing from topicgroup.

Also, saying "processors are free to ignore the navtitle of a topicgroup element" is making it a special case because it means I cannot simply have a rule that says "if no navtitle no effect on navigation". And it cannot be a "may" it must be a "must", as in, "topicgroup's with navigation titles MUST NOT contribute to navigation".

Cheers,