Introduction to Elements
This section describes each element in the variant Authoring Tag Sets and the XHTML-inspired table model. The elements in this Tag Library are described in alphabetical
order by their tag names (i.e., element type names). The tag name is the shorter machine-readable name used in tagged documents, DTD fragments and schemas, and by software; for example, the tag name
<p> is used for the element named Paragraph.
Each element is described by a separate HTML page, where the heading for the page displays
the element’s tag name followed by its longer descriptive name. The rest of the element
description page discusses aspects of the element and its usage. The sections within the page
always appear in the following order although any given element page may not contain all the
sections:
Definition (untitled) | Provides a narrative description of the element, that is, it “defines”
the element and may provide information on its usage. This is not intended to be a formal
dictionary definition, but more to provide information about an element and how it may be
used. |
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Remarks | Provides additional information about the element, explanations of similar or
contrasting elements, or instructions for element usage. (See also Related Elements described below.) Conversion Notes and Technical Notes are explicit and sometimes very
technical instructions to people who are mapping between documents
tagged according to this Tag Set and those tagged according to other tag sets; building conversion software to convert between another tag set and one written
from this Suite; or producing products based on this Suite. These notes may be more technical than a general reader will need
to worry about. Authoring Notes are usage instructions aimed at persons writing or editing journal
articles according to a tag set written from this Suite. Implementor’s Notes are instructions written to persons creating or maintaining
DTDs or schemas based on the Suite. |
Related Elements | Contains information about elements associated with or confused with the current element. For example, a
<def-list> has many components: an optional
title, possibly headers for both the term and definition columns, and multiple container
elements, each containing a single term and its definition. In order to better understand the
relationship among such components, information about all of them will be provided in the
Related Elements segment for each element comprising a
<def-list>. |
Attributes | For an element that may take attributes, this segment contains an alphabetical list of
those attributes. Each line contains the identification for one attribute: first, the
attribute’s name as it appears in this Tag Set, then a longer, more descriptive name.
Each attribute is linked to its description in the Attribute Section, which follows the
Element Description Section in this Tag Library. |
Content Model | Contains a copy of the element’s declaration in XML syntax, i.e., the
“content” of the element. This may contain parameters entities, of the form
“%name;”, which often stand in for commonly-used lists of elements. Users not
familiar with formal XML (DTD) syntax will likely prefer the “Expanded Content
Model” or the “Description”. |
Expanded Content Model | Contains a copy of the element’s declaration in XML syntax, i.e., the
“content” of the element with all parameter entities expanded to their
ultimate values. This shows directly all the elements that the described element can contain,
and in what combination. |
Description | The description is an English-language explanation of the “content” of
the element, that is, what is allowed to be inside the element. This content description
contains the same information in plain English that the two Content Models provide in XML
syntax. For example, an element may contain only text (“text, numbers, or special
characters”), other elements (for example, a title followed by a paragraph), or both
text and other elements in some combination. If an element contains other elements, their
names are listed here. |
This element may be contained in | The Tag Library contains a complete context table that provides information about where
each element can be used. This segment contains the portion of the context table relevant to
the element being discussed. This alphabetical listing of all elements which may contain the
element under discussion (where an element may be used) is
the inverse of the model description, which lists what can be inside the named element. |
Example | This portion of the element description page provides an excerpt of a tagged XML
document, showing use of the current element. Usually an element is shown in context, with
its surrounding elements, and the current element is highlighted in bold. |