[DDI-users] Passing line breaks to DDI-XML, continued

[I-Lin Kuo]

There's a philosophical division within the DDI about using formatting tags 
within
the DDI. Some feel that XML should be about content only. Others, like you,
are concerned with the readability of elements containing long text.

Part of the difficulty of the problem is getting people to understand the 
difference
between HTML problems and XML problems. The lack of paragraphs and returns
and tabs in the DDI display is an HTML problem -- this only occurs if 
you're using
a browser to look at your XML. If you use a text editor, there isn't an 
issue. On the
other hand, the lack of <b> and <ul> elements is an XML "problem."

As a compromise, a very limited set of formatting tags from the TEI 
standard have been
adopted (see the development version 1.3 of the DTD at
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/DDI/CODEBOOK/codebook1-3.html) -- div, emph,
head, hi, itm, list, label. These are the only allowed formatting tags 
within the
the DDI. The use of the html elements is not allowed and will cause your
document not to validate against the DTD. I would guess that Publisher2
displays your html markup correctly because it is not validating against
the 1.3 development version of the DTD.

Thus, at the current date, I would recommend that you use only the DTD-allowed
formatting tags.

On the other hand, I'd like to state my opinion that the implementation 
choice of
choosing TEI formatting tags over their HTML counterparts is an incorrect one.
Content tagged with TEI cannot be displayed as is within a browser. This
forces an extra conversion step to convert the TEI tags when displaying in the
browser, the most common display method. HTML is a well-known standard
while TEI is only well-known within a small (but important) academic niche.
This increases the already considerable learning curve/implementation barrier
to using the DDI for both processors and programmers (albeit only slightly).
It is my hope that the DDI  will reconsider the choice of TEI over HTML 
tags....

At 08:59 PM 4/17/03 +0200, you wrote:
>Hi again,
>
>just to reply to myself: I introduced in a XML file some html elements: 
><p></p> <br> <strong> <ul><li><li></ul>, and uploaded it into Nesstar with 
>Publisher2. Works fine: In http://nesstar.sidos.ch, see the study:
>
>- Swiss electoral studies 1999
>-- abstract
>-- Other study description -> Related ...
>
>Note also that this might due to how Nesstar formats the output. Looking 
>at the XML with my own simple XSL, you see the html tags as they are:
>http://www.static.sidos.ch/idc_test.asp?dest=idc/000305.XML
>
>
>So nevertheless, i'd appreciate it to have some more information about 
>using formatting tags in DDI-XML.
>
>Regards
>Freddy
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Fredy Kuhn" <fredy.kuhn@sidos.unine.ch>
>To: <ddi-users@icpsr.umich.edu>
>Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2003 7:16 PM
>Subject: [DDI-users] Passing line breaks to DDI-XML, continued
>
>
>Hi Sanda, and all the others,
>
>I grabbed out the e-mail below, and wanted to ask about the state of the 
>art concerning formatting tags. Are they available? Can anybody show me a 
>XML example how to use them?
>
>The only search result about 'formatting tags' is a report as of june-15,2002:
>http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/DDI/ORG/min6-15-02.html
>
>To provoke at bit: You might agree that the 'series information' in:
>http://www.icpsr.umich.edu:8080/DDI/SAMPLES/07728.xml
>looks terrible, and nobody reads this. Some of the tag contents should 
>rather appear as formatted texts, and might have lot of information, like 
>abstract. <pre> is a solution, but not the best.
>
>
>Regards
>Freddy Kuhn, SIDOS
>www.sidos.ch
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Sanda Ionescu" <sandai@icpsr.umich.edu>
>To: <ddi-users@icpsr.umich.edu>
>Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2002 9:11 PM
>Subject: [DDI-users] Passing line breaks to DDI-XML
>
>
> > The DDI Committee has addressed the need to preserve text formatting in 
> DDI.
> > Recently it has approved the introduction of a number of formatting tags
> > within all elements that contain PCDATA.
> > At ICPSR we are now in the process of enabling these tags in a development
> > version of the DTD, which will be posted
> > on the DDI site within a few days. We will announce the posting through
> > this list, and will certainly welcome any feedback on the new tags and
> > other minor changes.
> > So please stay tuned!
> >
> > Sanda Ionescu
> > Research Associate
> > Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
> > 311 Maynard St.
> > Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2211
> > Phone: (734) 998-9895
> > Fax (734) 998-9889
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > DDI-users mailing list
> > DDI-users@icpsr.umich.edu
> > http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/mailman/listinfo/ddi-users
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