[xml2rfc-dev] RFC 7991 issue #31: Schema Issue, RFC 7991, In Section 2.54, <table>

[Henrik Levkowetz <[e-mail]>]

Bringing this issue to the list.  The issue was raised by Miek:
https://github.com/rfc-format/draft-iab-xml2rfc-v3-bis/issues/31

This issue starts out by stating one problem, namely that <table>
has no provisions for having a caption.  The discussion subsequently
sorts this out, pointing to the use of the <name> element for a table
in order to provide the caption.

In order to make this clearer, Section 2.54 probably should mention
the usage of <name> to provide a caption, and section 2.32 should
include 'table' in the initial list of places it can be used (not only
texttable).  Section 1.3.3, bullet 7 could also mention the use of
<name> to provide a caption.

The discussion subsequently mentions the discrepancy between table and
figure permitting <name>, while <artwork> doesn't.  To clarify this,
it might be good to point out in Section 2.5. <artwork> that there is
no separate numbering space for artwork; in order to caption and number
a piece of artwork it has to be wrapped in a <figure> so that it can
get a Figure number.

Finally the discussion moves on to the alignment of table captions.

There are 2 issues here:

 - one schema issue, which is whether to permit left/center/right
   alignment of tables.  It is permitted for artwork, and was permitted
   for texttable, but it not permitted for <table>.

 - The alignment of the table caption.  This is not covered in the
   specification, but xml2rfc 2.10.2 centers the caption, while the
   table (lacking any alignment specification) is left-aligned.  For
   narrow tables, this mis-alignment of caption and table does not look
   good.  The next release of xml2rfc will center the caption under the
   table, before placing the combined table and caption.

To sum up:  I think there are some improvements that could be made to
the document text, to clarify the use of <name> to provide <table>
captions.  There is one unresolved schema issue (align keyword for
<table>) and one layout issue which will be fixed in the next xml2rfc
release.


Best regards,

	Henrik