Feature Request: question id [was Thoughts on the Way to School]

Hi

Thanks to everyone who responded to my original post.  Apologies for the
long break in correspondence.

DAVE'S SUGGESTION

Dave, the process you suggest works for me:

1.    Run a script creating elements.txt from some source and deleting
elements.bin, if it exists, to force memaid to use the .txt file
2.    Use Memaid
3.    Convert elements.txt back into xml

MY SETUP

1.    I write up my lecture notes in docbook format
2.    docbook 4.2 has question and answer tags
(http://www.docbook.org/tdg/en/html/qandaset.html)
3.    I use these to markup memaid-style questions as part of these notes
4.    I've written a 'script' that extracts question/answer from a docbook
file and creates a memaid elements.txt file.

ROUNDTRIPING

1.    At present, the entries are exported with all memaid fields set to [0]
2.    I frequently rework my question/answers so I want persist memaid data
between exports
3.    I want to, as you suggest, create a script that exports the memaid
data into xml, but
4.    I need to update my docbook files, associating the new data with the
original question/answers
5.    To do this, I need to be able to match the original questions/answers
6.    To do this I need the elements.txt file to store an ID for each entry
7.    As elements.txt is r-written after each memaid session any fields I
add are lost

REQUEST

1.    Add an ID field to the elements.txt file, e.g.  field
id=[contract-law-faq-19]
2.    Make this a string - 1.  Flexible, 2. XML ID are required to be
strings, 3. easier to ensure unique IDs when merging multiple xml files

QUESTION

1.    Under this scheme, new entries are added into elements.txt with all
fields set to [0].  I'm hoping that this will seamlessly work these new
questions into the learning process.  Is this the correct way to be doing
this?

KLEMENS MEYER'S DTD

1.    I agree that it would be preferrable to use attributes for storing
memaid data
2.    In my case, an xml file created by an export script would be a
transient source file - I would parse that file and merge the memaid data
into my docbook files.
3.    That said, it would be an *extremely*  helpful source file - it is so
easy to work with xml files given all the available tools.

Best Regards,

Richard Hoberman



-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email sponsored by: Enterprise Linux Forum Conference & Expo
The Event For Linux Datacenter Solutions & Strategies in The Enterprise 
Linux in the Boardroom; in the Front Office; & in the Server Room 
http://www.enterpriselinuxforum.com