Suggested bug-fix: Re: [osis-core] <milestone> in <title>?

[Patrick Durusau]

Harry,

Harry Plantinga wrote:

>The <milestone> element is supposed to serve as a generic
>"here" marker for identifying locations for unanticipated 
>purposes. However, it can't appear in a <title> element.
>
>I can think of a number of reasons you might want to put a 
><milestone> in a <title>.  The one that's causing me headaches
>right now is that I want to use <milestone type="br"> to 
>identify line breaks. E.g.
>
><title>MEISTER<br/>ECKHART'S<br/>SERMONS</title>
>
>I want to write
>
><title>MEISTER<milestone type="br"/>ECKHART'S...etc.
>
>Can we add <milestone> to the <title> content model?
>Or do you have another suggestion for handling line
>breaks?
>
Actually TEI allows <milestone> in <title>.

My suggestion for line breaks is DON'T! ;-)

Consider that most searching software is looking for <title>MEISTER 
ECKHART'S SERMONS</title> and not:

<title type="main"><title="subpart">MEISTER</title><title 
type="subpart">ECKHART'S</title><title 
type="subpart">SERMONS</title></title>

Makes searching unnecessarily difficult with no real gain. (Not to 
mention inconsistent with other encodings that follow structure and not 
presentation.) At least the milestone solution, if generally used, could 
be simply ignored for searching/indexing purposes.

Could use <seg> if you really want to break the <title> up but again 
that has consequences for searching.

Really looks like abuse of the <p> element to press it into service for 
rendering.

Sigh, I really hate presentation issues. ;-)

SUGGESTION: Since we are issuing a bug fix anyway (assuming I can keep 
on track), voices in favor of adding <milestone> (just the generic one) 
to <title>?

(Before anyone asks, should the same be true for <caption>? I can 
imagine the same question arising there as well.)

Yes to Troy's question about <seg>, it really is the container for 
anything (else!) we forgot. ;-)

Patrick


>
>I suppose I could use <p> instead of <title>, i.e.
>
><p type="title">MEISTER<milestone type="br"/>...
>
>Perhaps that is what I will have to do unless the schema
>is changed.
>
>-Harry
>

-- 
Patrick Durusau
Director of Research and Development
Society of Biblical Literature
pdurusau@emory.edu