Hi folks, A friend was griping about the complexity of mediaobjects earlier today.
<figure xml:id="ex.pythagorean">
<title>The Pythagorean Theorem Illustrated</title>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject condition="print">
<imagedata fileref="figs/print/db5d_ref01.pdf"/>
</imageobject>
</mediaobject>
</figure>
I grant that there are a few more layers of wrapper in there than
you'd really like. The wrappers exist for good reasons, but mostly
related to dealing with multiple output formats (CMYK, hi-res color,
low-res color, etc.).
Those uses are less common today than they were a decade ago.
What I assume my friend wants is an <img> tag. Adding a parallel image
structure to DocBook doesn't appeal to me, but it did occur to me that
we could allow imagedata in more places:
<figure xml:id="ex.pythagorean">
<title>The Pythagorean Theorem Illustrated</title>
<imagedata fileref="figs/print/db5d_ref01.pdf"/>
</figure>
It leaves a slightly odd element name but it's a single tag. I assume
that audiodata and videodata would be equally useful.
Should we consider allowing "bare" imagedata/audiodata/videodata
elements in DocBook? I suppose they'd be both inline and block
elements.
Be seeing you,
norm
--
Norman Walsh <[email protected]> | We live on an island surrounded by
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/ | a sea of ignorance. As our island
Chair, DocBook Technical Committee | of knowledge grows, so does the
| shore of our ignorance.--John
| Archibald Wheeler
signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
