Background:
In the OOTB DITA application, when an author inserts an <xref> element in a document, and links to a target element that has a <title>, like a <table> or <concept>, the content of the <title> is shown in the Editor in the <xref> element. This may or may not match what the stylesheet actually generates in the output, but it gives the author an idea of what they are linking to in the Editor view. This is a good feature to have.
Issue:
When an author inserts an <xref> element in a document, and links to a target element that does NOT have a <title>, like a <smastep> or <fn>, an authoring instruction is displayed in the Editor “No title at target; link text should be authored.” This instruction is misleading, and not all targets will or should have a <title>. In our case, the stylesheet will correctly generate the step or footnote number in the output, so link text should NOT be authored. The text for this author note is not currently accessible and cannot be changed.
Benefits: Improve usability by allowing customization of author instructions; Maximize benefits of XML by promoting the correct use of xref functionality and not encouraging the manual typing in of cross reference text; Improve quality of user content, authored xrefs do not automatically update as content changes.
1 Comment
