DITA Resource Center

linklist

The <linklist> element defines an author-arranged group of links. When you use a <linklist> element, the organization of links on final output is in the same order as originally authored inside that element.

There are two ways to organize related information links within a topic. First, you can add them all in no particular order, either by using <linkpool> elements or by placing <link> elements directly within <related-links>, in which case the rendering is implementation dependent. For example, tools may choose to sort all links based on the role or type; tools may also move or remove links to fit the context (for example, moving a prerequisite link to the top of a browser window, or removing links to the next topic if it is rendered on the same page in a PDF). These behaviors are examples only and are not required.

Second, links may be grouped using one or more <linklist> elements. When you group them using <linklist>, then the order of the links within each <linklist> is preserved when rendered. You may also use a combination of the two approaches, which will allow some links to be automatically sorted while the others are left as-is.

Attributes set on the <linkpool> and <linklist> elements are inherited by their descendants. For example, if you have a <linklist> element that contains all external links, you can set scope="external" on that outer <linklist> element and leave it off the <link> elements within that <linklist>.

Contains

note

These models represent only the default document types distributed by OASIS. Actual content models will differ with each new document type.
Doctype Content model
topic, concept, ditabase, glossary, glossentry, glossgroup, reference, task, machineryTask, learningAssessment, learningContent, learningOverview, learningPlan, learningSummary ( (title) (optional) then (desc) (optional) then (linklist or link) (any number) then (linkinfo) (optional) )

Contained by

Doctype Content model
topic (base), topic (technical content), concept, ditabase, glossary, glossentry, glossgroup, reference, task (strict), task (general), machineryTask, learningAssessment, learningContent, learningOverview, learningPlan, learningSummary related-links, linklist

Inheritance

- topic/linklist

Example

<related-links>
  <linklist scope="external">
    <title>Example links</title>
    <desc>These links will always appear in this order.</desc>
    <link href="http://www.example.org">
      <linktext>Example 1</linktext>
    </link>
    <link href="http://www.example.com">
      <linktext>Example 2</linktext>
    </link>
  </linklits>
</related-links>

Attributes

Name Description Data Type Default Value Required?
collection-type Collection types describe how links relate to each other. The processing default is "unordered", although no default is specified in the DTD or Schema.
unordered
Indicates that the order of the child topics is not significant.
sequence
Indicates that the order of the child topics is significant; output processors will typically link between them in order.
choice
Indicates that one of the children should be selected.
family
Represents a tight grouping in which each of the referenced topics not only relates to the current topic but also relate to each other.
-dita-use-​conref-​target
See Using the -dita-use-conref-target value for more information.

Usage of the collection-type attribute on <reltable> and <relcolspec> is currently undefined and reserved for future use.

(unordered | sequence | choice | family | -dita-use-​conref-​target) #IMPLIED No
duplicates Specifies whether or not duplicate links will be filtered out of a linklist. Allowable values are: "yes" (allow duplicate links), or "no" (filter out duplicate links). In general, duplicate links in linklists are preserved.. Note that links are regarded as duplicates only if their content plus all attributes match. #IMPLIED The attribute value is currently ignored, but should default to yes for links in linklists and no for all other links. No
mapkeyref Identifies the map, if any, from which the contained links are derived. This value is automatically generated by the same process that creates the links from the map, as a way to identify which map the links came from. If the <linklist> or <linkpool> is manually created by the author, there is no need to use this attribute. Note that this attribute is not related to the keyref attribute, and is not used for key based processing. CDATA #IMPLIED No
type Describes the target of a reference. See The type attribute for detailed information on supported values and processing implications. CDATA #IMPLIED No
role The role attribute defines the role the target topic plays in relationship with the current topic. For example, in a parent/child relationship, the role would be "parent" when the target is the parent of the current topic, and "child" when the target is the child of the current topic. This structure could be used to sort and classify links at display time. See The role attribute for information on supported values.

The role attribute values sample and external are deprecated.

(parent | child | sibling | friend | next | previous | cousin | ancestor | descendant | sample | external | other | -dita-use-​conref-​target) #IMPLIED No
otherrole Indicates an alternate role. This value is used when the role attribute is set to other. CDATA #IMPLIED No
spectitle The specialized title attribute allows architects of specialized types to define a fixed or default title for a specialized element. Not intended for direct use by authors. CDATA #IMPLIED No
format The format attribute identifies the format of the resource being referenced. See The format attribute for details on supported values. CDATA #IMPLIED No
scope The scope attribute identifies the closeness of the relationship between the current document and the target resource. See The scope attribute for more information on values. (local | peer | external | -dita-use-​conref-​target) #IMPLIED No
univ-atts attribute group (includes select-atts, id-atts, and localization-atts groups) A set of related attributes, described in univ-atts attribute group
global-atts attribute group (xtrf, xtrc) A set of related attributes, described in global-atts attribute group
class, outputclass Common attributes described in Other common DITA attributes

Was this page helpful?