Re: Tabs and <formalgroup> content model

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> From Norms comments, " ## A group of formal objects, for example subfigur=
es"
> seems a bit off (my view), rather than 'formal objects' (I've a job
> relating to that),
> how about 'related' or 'closely related' then figures / subfigures
> matches (to me).

Perhaps.

DocBook started out with <table> for tables and they had a title. This
was back in the DTD days where you couldn=E2=80=99t have context-dependent
content models. In order to make it possible for a customization layer
to separately constrain tables-with-a-title from tables-without-a-title,
they had to have different names. (Just making title optional wouldn=E2=80=
=99t
have satisfied this requirement because it wouldn=E2=80=99t have been possi=
ble
to say, =E2=80=9Cno, in *this* context, the title is always required.)

Consequently, we ended up with <informaltable> to identify a thing that
was a table but *didn=E2=80=99t* have a title. You need a wrapper for that =
one
because the content model of a table needs a wrapper. From there, it was
a short step to <informalfigure> for a <figure> without a title, etc.

Over time, a back-formation developed: if the things that didn=E2=80=99t ha=
ve
titles were =E2=80=9Cinformal=E2=80=9D, then collectively, the things that =
*did* have
titles were =E2=80=9Cformal=E2=80=9D.

So we ended up with formalgroup: a group of =E2=80=9Cformal=E2=80=9D object=
s.

As a tag name, I don=E2=80=99t think <relatedgroup> would be an improvement=
. And
I don=E2=80=99t think <group> would be an improvement either because it=E2=
=80=99s too
broad.

That ship has sailed anyway. We=E2=80=99re not changing its name now.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

=2D-
Norm Tovey-Walsh <[email protected]>
https://norm.tovey-walsh.com/

> There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we
> don't know.--Ambrose Bierce

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