How much freight does custom tags add to
a displayable HTML page? Is there any impact on performance?
Michael Priestley, Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM)
Enterprise Content Technology Strategist
http://dita.xml.org/blog/michael-priestley
From:
Carlos Evia <>
To:
Date:
05/10/2016 02:46 PM
Subject:
[dita-lightweight-dita]
Refactoring HDITA with custom tags
Sent by:
<>
Apologies (in advance) but I won't make it to the 05/16
call. Continuing the conversation about refactoring HDITA, I wonder how
much mixing of HTML5 custom tags (Don's proposal) and custom data attributes
(Michael's original approach) we should keep. I have been experimenting
with Don's approach to extend HTML5's native elements to mimic XDITA/DITA
tags, and I really think we should explore that as HDITA's evolution path.
It makes authoring much easier than having to remember the data attributes.
I compare here both approaches with the proto-example
included in the Technical Communication paper I wrote with Michael:
Current HDITA model (based on Michael's 2014 idea)
<article data-hd-class="task">
<h1>How to do something</h1>
<p>Introduction to this specific task</p>
<section data-hd-class="task/context">
<p>Use only when ready</p>
</section>
<section data-hd-class="task/steps-informal">
<ol>
<li><p>Plan something</p></li>
<li><p>Do something</p></li>
<li><p>Evaluate something</p></li>
</ol>
</section>
<section data-hd-class="topic/example">
<p>Like this</p>
</section>
</article>
My aberrant take on Don's proposed use of custom tags:
<article-task>
<h1>How to do something</h1>
<p>Introduction to this specific task</p>
<section-context>
<p>Use only when ready</p>
</section-context>
<section-steps>
<ol>
<li><p>Plan something</p></li>
<li><p>Do something</p></li>
<li><p>Evaluate something</p></li>
</ol>
</section-steps>
<section-example>
<p>Like this</p>
</section-example>
</article-task>
Is there a third way that combines both approaches? What
would we gain? Right now, moving to custom tags will only break a) my former
students' projects, and b) Jarno's HDITA plug-in (which was pretty much
his experimental contribution to our DITA NA presentation this year).
If this is a good idea, we (I) can work on re-mapping
HDITA and new examples.... and then we can move on to the headache of MarkDITA,
MDITA or however we want to call the Markdown flavor of Lightweight DITA.
Comments?
---
Carlos Evia, Ph.D.
Director of Professional and
Technical Writing
Associate Professor of Technical
Communication
Department of English
Center for Human-Computer Interaction
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA 24061-0112
(540)200-8201
