[Psgml-user] FYI - element ignore/unignore feature request

[Michael S. <sm...@xm...>]

This is just an FYI regarding a PSGML feature request I filed a few days
back. Just wondering whether others might think it'd be a useful feature.

  http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=757878&group_id=9156&atid=359156

In a nutshell, the request is to provide a means for the PSGML interface
to 'ignore' certain valid elements even when editing against a particular DTD.

This would amount to supressing elements from the Markup>Insert Element
menu and from the sgml-insert-element (C-c C-e) set of completions.

Rationale...

The sole rationale behind this enhancement would be to reduce the number
and kinds elements that authors need to choose from when editing against
large DTDs (such as TEI and DocBook).

Without such a mechanism, doc authors and authoring groups need to do
DTD customization to eliminate the elements they don't have any use for.

But it seems like it would be  much more efficient and easily
user-customizable to meet this reduce-the-set-of-elements-I-see
requirement by providing an 'ignore' capability at the editing
application layer level instead of at the DTD level.

Background...

There has been much talk in the DocBook community recently about
modularizing the DocBook DTD/schema into logical sets of elements. I
could be wrong, but as far as I can see, the main value that most people
suggesting that seem to have in mind is to make DocBook authoring easier
by giving authors and authoring groups the capability to omit sets of
elements for which they have no use.

I could see making changes at the DTD/schema level if the requirement
were driven by concerns about validating or processing documents, not
just authoring concerns. But that doesn't seem to be the case.

So this proposed 'ignore' mechanism would provide a simple way just to
solve the ease-of-authoring need.

  --Mike