Re: interface tag

[Eric Baudais <baudais kkpsi org>]

Pat-

The tags should describe the content of the document and not how the document will 
look after the stylesheets are applied.  This being said is why the <interface> 
tag currently does not have any emphasis in the HTML stylesheets.

I think that any standard interface components are the words which need mark up.  
These are computer related terms and are meant to be marked up because DocBook 
is a DTD for computer documentation.  When these words come into common usage 
they should then not need any markup.  The DocBook language should mark up all 
computer related terms so their presentation to the reader can be altered.

Eric Baudais

On Tue, Jun 11, 2002 at 07:47:36PM +0100, Pat Costello wrote:
> Eric Baudais wrote:
> 
> > There are intances when the GUI* tags do not apply.  I'm thinking of 
> > specifically marking up the text "dialog box", "scroll bar", "text box", 
> > "drop list", and "tool bar."  These are part of the GUI, but do not apply 
> > under any of the GUI* tags.  For some of these items you could use their name 
> > with <guilabel>, but when you use these terms then the <interface> tag 
> > applies.  
> > 
> 
> Terms such as "dialog box", "text box", "scrollbar", "drop list" and "toolbar" 
> are all standard interface components, and as such should not need any kind of 
> emphasis. The labels, names, and other values attached to these components do 
> require tags, to draw the attention of the user. If we start tagging the 
> standard component words, as well as their associated labels, then we will have 
> a surfeit of tags and corresponding overload of emphasis in the final output. 
> There is a danger that the emphasized text will seriously outweigh the remaining 
> prose text, and hence devalue the original intention in assigning emphasis to 
> certain text strings in the first place. Usability will decrease, not increase. 
> 
> In any case, as far as I can ascertain the interface tag was never intended to 
> be used as a tag around such standard component words anyway. Why should this be 
> the case now? 
> 
> Pat
>