Description of problem: As you may or may not know, the stepalternatives tag presently has no special formatting. Presently it formats the same way as itemized list items format. What I would love to see is the words "optional" or "alternative step" or whatever Brian suggests placed in front of the text in the step. Perhaps some light bold markup or similar. There is a business case for this. It makes my life easier for explaining how to use different features. Presently using admonitions or repeating the procedure is the easiest way to write around it and get a similar effect. The problem with this is using admonitions is distracting and may be interpreted as no-core functionality. Additional info: Cider.
Putting a label on this tag will only limit its usefulness. If you add "optional" to all <stepalternative> tags then they can only be used as optional. If you call them alternatives, then they can only be that. It will also require revisiting and validating all those instances where the tag has already been used. Relying on formatting is ok; adding textual labels is highly questionable. There is also a team of people involved in working on our style guide, not a single person.
FYI 1: stepalternative does have: Attribute Name: performance Type Enumeration: optional required Default: "required" FYI 2: Neither optional or required are contained in the translation strings in DocBook, meaning automated translation of the labels would require upstream modification.
Oh, I am aware I am not the only one working. Are you aware the tag is presently unsupported? *WARNING: Unvalidated tag: stepalternatives* This tag may not be displayed correctly, may generate invalid xhtml, or may breach Section 508 Accessibility standards. The default is also "required", not optional. Presently it formats with a bullet point, which in this writers view is completely wrong. Updating the output to alphabet characters would be a partial fix. There is no reason why something tagged stepalternative --an alternative step-- could not have "Alternative step:" or similar appended to the front. The textual tags require localized support, but I'm sure we can get that with a quick ping around our translators.
(In reply to comment #3) > The textual tags require localized support, but I'm sure we can get that > with a quick ping around our translators. Localization of the 'textual tags' requires modification of the gentext keys and templates, which must be done in the upstream DocBook xsl. I am looking in to the other issues raised.
Created attachment 373911 [details] example of step alternative support Generated from this XML structure <step> <para> Once the installation of Windows Server 2003 (or R2) 32-bit edition is complete, confirm that Service Pack 2 was included in the initial installation of Windows Server 2003 before proceeding. </para> <substeps> <step> <para> Open the <application>System Properties</application> dialog box using one of the following methods: </para> <stepalternatives> <step> <para> Open the <application>System</application> applet in <application>Control Panel</application>; or </para> </step> <step> <para> Right-click on <application>My Computer</application> and choose <application>Properties</application>. </para> </step> </stepalternatives> </step>
publican-1.3-0.fc12 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 12. http://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/publican-1.3-0.fc12
publican-1.3-0.fc11 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 11. http://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/publican-1.3-0.fc11
publican-1.3-0.fc12 has been pushed to the Fedora 12 stable repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.
publican-1.3-0.fc11 has been pushed to the Fedora 11 stable repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.