Paul-
I'm not sure if our discussions during yesterday's teleconference clarified
this a bit...but for our writers, Steps are sequential, and imply that
the action is to be carried out in a certain order, but the concept of
a Branch is that it would imply a choice...either one or the other
(Or, alternatively, a choice from multiple options).
What about the above step 1 makes it not just consist of
two steps where the second one consists of two steps?
I mean, suppose I changed the words to read as follows:
1. How to get the Volume Manager running.
* Pour yourself a cup of coffee.
* Start the Volume Manager running:
a. Log in as root.
b. Type /etc/init.d/volmgt start.
Certainly that would just be steps within steps. So the only
difference appears to be that your example has the word "If"
in it, but I'm not sure I see the motivation yet for that
requiring a fairly thorough change of markup.
I don't know if my response to Dave Pawson as well as the additional
examples provide a better context for you, but your example isn't quite
what I had in mind-- as the "fork" in the action path is determined
by whether the Volume Manager is or isn't running.
1. Check if the Volume Manager is running.
* If it is, Pour yourself a cup of coffee, and procede to Step 2.
* If it isn't, start the Volume Manager by doing the following:
a. Log in as root.
b. Type /etc/init.d/volmgt start.
2. Here is the next thing in both instances...
So, you wouldn't get yourself a cup of coffee then log in as root...
you would do either one OR the other. (^:
In this case, the word "if" is significant, as it indicates that the user
should select one action or the other. This is why Sun writers are requesting
a new element Branch, one which is semantically unambiguous about indicating
"choice."
Thanks Paul,
Sabine-
