Topic content
The content of all topics, regardless of topic type, is built on the same common structures.
- Topic body
- The topic body contains all content except for that contained in the title or the short description/abstract. The topic body can be constrained to remove specific elements from the content model; it also can be specialized to add additional specialized elements to the content model. The topic body can be generic while the topic title and prolog are specialized.
- Sections and examples
- The body of a topic might contain divisions, such as sections and examples. They might contain
block-level elements like titles and paragraphs and phrase-level elements like API names
or text. It is recommend that sections have titles, whether they are entered directly into
the
<title>element or rendered using a fixed or default title. <bodydiv>- The
<bodydiv>element enables the arbitrary grouping of content within the body of a topic for the purpose of content reuse. The<bodydiv>element does not include a title. For content that requires a title, use<section>or<example>. <div>- The
<div>element enables the arbitrary grouping of content within a topic. The<div>element does not include a title. For content that requires a title, use<section>or<example>or, possibly,<fig>. - Block-level elements
- Paragraphs, lists, figures, and tables are types of "block" elements. As a class of content, they can contain other blocks, phrases, or text, though the rules vary for each structure.
- Phrases and keywords
- Phrase level elements can contain markup to label parts of a paragraph or parts of a sentence as
having special semantic meaning or presentation characteristics, such as
<uicontrol>or<b>. Phrases can usually contain other phrases and keywords as well as text. Keywords can only contain text. - Images
- Images can be inserted to display photographs, illustrations, screen captures, diagrams, and more. At the phrase level, they can display trademark characters, icons, toolbar buttons, and so forth.
- Multimedia
- The
<object>element enables authors to include multimedia, such as diagrams that can be rotated and expanded. The<foreign>element enables authors to include media within topic content, for example, SVG graphics, MathML equations, and so on.