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

[Henrik Levkowetz <[e-mail]>]

On 2018-10-06 19:10, Jim Schaad wrote:
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: xml2rfc-dev <[e-mail]> On Behalf Of Henrik
>> Levkowetz
>> Sent: Saturday, October 6, 2018 9:33 AM
>> To: XML Developer List <[e-mail]>
>> Subject: [xml2rfc-dev] RFC 7991 issue #31: Schema Issue, RFC 7991, In Section
>> 2.54, <table>
>> 
>> 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>.
> 
> This is going to violate the least surprise rule. Since v2 centers
> tables by default, I think that should be the case in v3 as well.

I fully agree.  Not making it so is a mistake from my side.  Will fix in
the next release.

> The
> question then becomes what are the advantages/disadvantages of
> allowing for left and right aligned tables.

Right.  (And also the issue of permitting it in the past, but not now.)

>>  - 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.
> 
> What is the rule you have for doing the alignment of figure captions?
> I think that the same rules should apply to both figures and tables.

Till now, both have been centered.  That can be changed.

> 
>> 
>> 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.
> 
> +1 on adding the align to the table, but the default needs to be
> center. If we allow it for figures then it should also be allowed for
> tables.

Makes sense to me.

	Henrik