conditionalize the changebar according to the different countries our
manuals will be sent out to. So in the end it was decided a changebar
element with country attributes are the way to go.
Could be done with a changebar attribute having country flags in its values.
also it would be nice to know how to add elements
to every level of a document.
Can't be done without major changes to the DTD unless the DTD already
provides a mechanism for it using Parameter Entities or something of
that sort. And even if the hooks are there, doing this risks losing the
ability to exchange these documents with other users/tools working in
Docbook unless they too are prepared to accept unexpected elements and
make some assumptions about exactly how to attempt to work past them.
Ignoring additional attributes really is a lot easier than ignoring
additional structure.
So my suggestion is "It's going to hurt when you do that." If you don't
like that suggestion, all I can suggest is digging into the DocBook DTDs
to see whether they do have the hooks for this, or if you're going to
have to patch them to death to make this work... and digging into all
your tools to see whether they'll support it or will blow up in your face.
--
Joe Kesselman / Beware the fury of a patient man. -- John Dryden