[tei-council] oversimplification: <measure> isn't measured

[Lou Burnard]

Syd Bauman wrote:
> In Berlin the TEI Council requested the creation of a new element,
> <measureGrp>, which would replace the special-purpose <dimensions>
> element. Was part of the point of this exercise to eliminate the
> special-purpose <height>, <width>, and <depth> as well, using (e.g.)
> <measure type="height"> or some such instead?


No, I don't think so. The specific elements are permitted as children of 
<measureGrp> as an alternation to text. As I remember the discussion, we 
recognises that most institutions would always supply dimensions in 
their own specific sequence, and might not want therefore to tag the 
height etc. explicitly. Compare the <geo> element, which just knows that 
you give lat and long in that order.

> 
> In any case, the implementation as it now stands seems problematic.
> Most importantly, the <measure> element has been added to the class
> att.measured and removed from att.measurement, which means it has
> traded in its quantity= attribute for an extent= attribute. This
> seems just wrong. "Extent" has a connotation in English of distance
> or area, and is not as general in its meaning as "quantity", which
> conveys exactly what the semantics of the attribute are for the
> <measure> element. 

I agree "extent" is a slightly strange name for this: how about @count?


> 
> Secondly, the "suggested values include" list for unit= has lost
> all the suggested values that don't make sense when measuring a page.
> For the <measure> element, I don't see why TEI should not provide
> standard values for all sorts of possible units. There really is no

The international standard is referenced, and I've certainly no 
objection to adding a few more examples taken from it


lement permits text content. Is there
> a reason for this? I'm not sure it makes sense, but may well be
> missing something. 

See above

No other <*Grp> element permits mixed content
> except the dictionary element <gramGrp>. (Although <personGrp> and
> <specGrp> do permit <p>.)
> 
> 
> Proposal
> --------
> 
> * move <measure> back to att.measurement
> 

Cant see anything to be gained by doing this, other than the confusion 
of now having two classes with the same meaning


> * remove text from content of <measureGrp>? (if it seems important,
>   put model.pLike in?)
> 

Not a good idea in my view, for reasons given above


> * change <height>, <width>, and <depth> to a single element <extent>,
>   which bears a dir= or dim= attribute whose value may be one of
>   "height", "width", and "depth". This new element could be empty
>   (quantity always expressed on quantity=, extent=, or value=
>   attribute) or could have content of text or macro.xtext. (I'd leave
>   it to David and Matthew to decide on that.)

we already have an element called <extent>, meaning something subtly 
different. What you;re proposing tho sounds just like <measure> to me!