[Council] JEP 141 (Data Forms Layout) Review

[Peter Saint-Andre]

Is there a potential ambiguity or source of confusion here, since
<desc/> in JEP-0141 is unlike <desc/> in JEP-0004? 

In JEP-0004, the following is true of <desc/>:

1. It may occur only once within a <field/>
2. It should not include newlines
3. Layout is the responsibility of the user agent
4. It provides a "tool tip" or other descriptive text
5. It applies at the level of the field

In JEP-0141, the following seems to be true of <desc/>:

1. It may occur an unbounded number of times
2. It should not include newlines (?)
3. Presumably, each <desc/> should be presented on a separate line
4. It provides a textual description (or perhaps instructions?)
5. It applies at the level of the page or section

Perhaps it would make sense to use a different element name in JEP-0141
for what is currently <desc/>?

Also, I think some examples would help to illustrate the usage. I'll try
to add some provisionally and discuss them with lw.

/psa

On Mon, Apr 25, 2005 at 01:20:03PM -0600, Matthew A. Miller wrote:
> My apologies for not being very clear.  For the <desc/> in <page/> and 
> <section/> was to allow similar behavior to <instructions/> in the 
> overall data form.  As I understand it, each <instructions/> element in 
> the form is intended to be a paragraph or line of text.  This was the 
> intent for the <desc/> element in <page/> and <section/>.
> 
> Exactly how this gets turned into a visual representation depends on how 
> data forms are rendered, and the capabilities of the  rendering 
> platform.  One example would be that each <desc/> is a label directly 
> under the page/section title.
> 
> I hope this is clearer.
> 
> Peter Millard wrote:
> 
> >Matthew A. Miller wrote:
> > 
> >
> >>1) <desc/> cardinality: The intent was to allow for identifying
> >>paragraphs in a manner that will be consistent on various platforms and
> >>applications. It was intended to be roughly equivalent with JEP-0004 (at
> >>the time of writing), but we can disallow this in favor of a single (and
> >>optional) description.
> >>   
> >>
> >
> >Not sure I'm following you... you wanted it to match the <desc> usage in
> >JEP-0004? That usage is baiscally a single optional element (not 
> >multiples).
> >Honestly, I'm ok with either direction... But as a client author, I'm not 
> >sure I
> >grok what multiple <desc> elements mean. Can you give an example of how 
> >this
> >would be used and displayed?
> >
> >pgm.