Re: <xref>, <term>, <systemitem> and all that sort of things

[Christian Fabre <c.fabre@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Norman Walsh:

| [xref keeping formating from the target endterm]
|
| I think you'd usually find that you _don't_ want that.  If you
| insert a chapter title in running text by xrefing the chapter, you
| don't expect the chapter title to get formatted as a chapter
| title in the middle of your paragraph.

Well, for titles, and for other "text" things as well, I'd say yes.
But for things like function or command, names and other "system"
things, I'd prefer to retain the formating.

For me "foo()" is a C function, where it is described (hence the
SYSTEMITEM tag) but also where it is used as a cross reference.  So it
seems to me that words which are between SYSTEMITEM tags are not words
any more, but rather a logo sort of, or a portion of a screen-shot,
and thus should be used as-is in XREFs.

In other words, I have no problem in removing from XREFs formating
like EMPHASIS, but I think that SYSTEMITEM should be retained.

But I guess this is mater of taste!


| | This is the case for instance if the <xref> refers to an id located
| | within a <refentrytitle> tag: the expansion of <xref> retain the
| | effect of <systemitem>.
| 
| I don't follow. Can you provide an example?

The REFENTRYTITLE example I gave was broken.

Actually, I'm new to docbook, and the first cross refs I've built in
my document use LINK, which means that I had to copy over the text of
the target and its formating within it.  I've discovered XREF latter
on.

When I've been writing my previous mail, I've been confused by a
sentence in my document where the both forms cohabit, one LINK with
SYSTEMITEMized text, and a genuine XREF.  I've taken one for the
other.  Sorry for the confusion.


| XRef discards all original formatting and always uses italics.  You could
| change this, by extending the mode used to format xref-endterms:
| 
| (mode xref-endterm-mode
|   (default
|     (make sequence
|       font-posture: 'italic
|       (process-children-trim))))

I'll look into that.

Thanks for the prompt reply,


|                                           norm

Christian.

=====
         Christian Fabre 		(TOG-RI was OSF-RI)
The Open Group Research Institute    Net: c.fabre@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
       2 avenue de Vignate	       Tel: +33 4 76.63.48.90
      38610 Gieres - France 	       Fax: +33 4 76.51.05.32 	


 DSSSList info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/dsssl/dssslist