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nicholas.sever1-Visitor
1-Visitor
November 27, 2012
Question

No alpha sequentialList tag in Arbortext Editor?

  • November 27, 2012
  • 19 replies
  • 14694 views

Is arbortext editor limited to either bulleted or numeric lists?

    19 replies

    C
    ClayHelberg18-Opal
    18-Opal
    November 27, 2012
    Hi Nicholas--



    Not at all, it depends entirely on your doctype and/or your stylesheet.
    For example, if you want all
      elements to use alphabetic labels
      instead of numeric ones, you can do that by changing the stylesheet. You
      could also add an <al> element to your doctype, analogous to
        but
        with alphabetic labels, again controlled by the stylesheet.



        --Clay





        Clay Helberg

        Senior Consultant

        TerraXML


    L
    LynnHales1-Visitor
    1-Visitor
    November 27, 2012
    No, not that I am aware of. The list would be determined by what you allow
    in your DTD or schema and how you want it displayed through your style
    sheets.



    Lynn


    D
    DavidS.Taylor1-Visitor
    1-Visitor
    November 27, 2012
    The 'style' of a
      or
        list is usually set by the 'type' attribute.

        As an example, in the HTML doctype supplied with Arbortext Editor,
          types are (disc|square|circle) and
            types are (1|a|A|i|I).

            If you are able to make changes to the DTD and stylesheet you are using, you can define other list styles to suit your needs.

            David

            David S. Taylor

            Project Manager, Production and Marketing
            Codes and Evaluations | NRC Construction
            National Research Council Canada
            Building M-23A, Room 239 | 1200 Montreal Road | Ottawa, ON | K1A 0R6
            Telephone: +1.613.990.2731 | Fax: +1.613.952.4040
            David.S.Taylor@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca<">mailto:David.S.Taylor@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca>


    P
    ptc-47963911-Visitor
    1-Visitor
    November 28, 2012

    Hi Nicholas


    It's worth having a look at the outspec.dtd for the fosi - counter styles are listed there, so these are the counters you could use for your lists. However it is also possible to specify custom list such as ndash for example by simply using 'usetext' and adding a character before your listitem. Anything is possible with fosi it's just hard to achieve somethings ^^


    Thanks


    Marcin


    example dash list:


    <att>
    <specval attname="list-type" attloc="list" attval="dash">
    <charsubset>
    <usetext source="!–!,@2pi" placemnt="before"></usetext>
    </charsubset>
    </att>


    outspec counter styles:



    initial NUMBER -- an integer -- #IMPLIED
    style (arabic | romanuc | romanlc | alphauc |
    alphalc | userdef | kanada | jaeum |
    circled-decimal | katakana | katakana-iroha |
    hiragana | hiragana-iroha | simp-chinese-informal |
    cjk-earthly-branch | cjk-heavenly-stem |
    hangul | hangul-consonant | thai |
    arabic-indic | urdu ) #IMPLIED
    specstyl CDATA -- a string -- #IMPLIED
    seq (1 | 2) #IMPLIED
    except CDATA -- a string -- #IMPLIED
    enumid ID -- an ID -- #REQUIRED
    padlen NUMBER -- an integer -- #IMPLIED>

    L
    LynnHales1-Visitor
    1-Visitor
    November 28, 2012
    A bit of history on the Outspec (output specification) list types. The FOSI
    goes back to the early 90's as markup was really still evolving (who here
    remembers SGML?). At one point the thought was both data AND style would be
    included in the document instance. However as users began to foresee
    different output styles this approach was quickly dropped.



    However by this time various list styles had been identified and were
    carried over to the OS. Typically these are not read and the numbering is
    based on specific requirements for the output contained in requirements
    documents. The embedding in the stylesheet approach makes for a more
    consistent output.



    The types of lists in the OS are a good example of different lists you can
    put into your schema/DTD and thus style sheets. I would hesitate to make an
    element for each list though, especially enumerated lists. Let the
    stylesheet establish the list type based on where the list appears. Most
    schema/DTD's I've worked with support three list types (one I really don't
    consider a TRUE list). These are ordered or numbered lists, unordered or
    random lists, and definition lists (I don't consider them a true list).



    You could actually get by with one list element and set an attribute at the
    list level to determine if the list is numbered or not. Then, again, let the
    stylesheet do the numbering.



    Another option that I have seen used is to use a 'label' attribute that
    contains the string you want displayed (e.g., label="a", label="b" or
    label="*", label="*"). For a random list, this may be okay, but a numbered
    list requires either the author to enter the appropriate value or some kind
    of post processing to populate the label attribute.



    My approach is to make the authors job easier and the output consistent for
    the users, so anything that will do that is what I tend to support and push.




    Lynn


    D
    DavidS.Taylor1-Visitor
    1-Visitor
    November 28, 2012
    I'll take Lynn's question back a bit further and ask who here remembers (and worked in) GML? That likely means you've probably been at this since the early '90s.

    To add to the comments about ordered lists...

    If you are putting together a FOSI it is fairly straightforward to style a three level ordered list (e.g., 1.b.iii) so that the nesting of the lists determines the numbering style with no additional input by the author. This satisfies most ordered list styling needs.

    I don't work with Styler but I expect it provides a similar capability.

    As Lynn suggests, lists that vary from the normal ordered list styling can be named and styled separately. Examples are definition lists, variable lists, symbol lists... this would be up to the DTD designer.

    David

    David S. Taylor

    Project Manager, Production and Marketing
    Codes and Evaluations | NRC Construction
    National Research Council Canada
    Building M-23A, Room 239 | 1200 Montreal Road | Ottawa, ON | K1A 0R6
    Telephone: +1.613.990.2731 | Fax: +1.613.952.4040
    David.S.Taylor@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca<">mailto:David.S.Taylor@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca>


    P
    ptc-19080751-Visitor
    1-Visitor
    November 28, 2012
    Hi Nicholas,

    I have attached information about FOSI countersfrom my almost-finished book, Practical FOSI, including some examples of lists. Other excerpts can be found on my website atfosiexpert.com/Practical-fosi.html.


    Good luck!

    Suzanne Napoleon
    www.FOSIexpert.com
    "WYSIWYG is last-century technology!"
    A
    AndyEsslinger1-Visitor
    1-Visitor
    November 28, 2012
    Looks like the fosiexpert site moved to a Lockheed permanently blocked address.

    [cid:image003.jpg@01CDCD6A.AAE4EF10]

    \ / Andy Esslinger LM Aero – Tech Order Data
    ______-/\-______ (817) 279-0442 1 Lockheed Blvd, MZ 4285
    \_\/_/ (817) 777-3047 Fort Worth, TX 76108-3916

    G
    gary.t.nadeau1-Visitor
    1-Visitor
    November 28, 2012
    Andy,

    Don’t feel the like the Lone Ranger. Boeing has the same block on it.


    Gary Nadeau
    Tech Lead - Data Support
    Boeing Defense, Space & Security - St. Louis
    P
    ptc-9539261-Visitor
    1-Visitor
    November 28, 2012
    If I recall correctly, GML was the IBM generalized markup language? Starting at Control Data in 1986, we devised our own GML (SGML was not yet an approved standard) and used it until the early 90s when we moved to SGML and "Adept" Editor/Publisher. Time for me to retire!

    Dave
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