Introduction to Elements
This section describes each element in the BITS Book Tag Set. Although the
elements are declared in many different modules, they are described here in alphabetical
order of 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. These sections
within the page always appear in the following order although any given element page may not
contain all the sections:
Definition | 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 book or
book part content 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 the current element. For
example, a Definition List has many
components: an optional label, an optional title, possibly headers for both the term
and definition columns, one or more container elements (each containing a single term
and its definition), and possibly an embedded definition list. 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 Definition 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 | 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. |