[docbook-apps] looking for advice on how to support "exercises" ... argh

["Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday at mindspring dot com>]

  i'm pretty well out of ideas on how to incorporate simple
sets of exercises into my manual.  it's been a long day, and
i'm about to pack it in, but i'm trying to add exercises to 
my manual subject to the following constraints:

1) a set of exercises is just a numbered list of questions, with
   possible sub-questions, so an <orderedlist> seems to do the
   job just fine and it's what i've been using until now.

2) those exercises should immediately follow a pseudo-heading that
   consists solely of the word "Exercises"

so far, so good, but just that simple header of the word "Exercises"
is causing all the pain, since here's what i'd like:

1) while i have section labelling turned on, i *don't* want the
   "Exercises" header labelled or enumerated, no matter where it
   turns up.  

   sounds like a <bridgehead> would work, but wait, there's more

2) "Exercises" should never show up in the ToC.  and, finally,
   the killer,

3) i would like the ability to explicitly add a page break before
   the set of exercises *if* they're not going to fit on the remainder
   of the page.  that is, aesthetically, if they won't fit, i'd like
   to move the whole set to a new page.

that last condition is what's stumping me.  i toyed with the idea 
of defining two kinds of exercise headers and using <sect4> and
<sect5> for them, defining a "break-before" for one and not for
the other, and just picking the appropriate one.

first, that's just plain ugly and, second, since i'm autolabelling,
the headers would get enumerated, which i don't want.

a <bridgehead> is *soooo* close, but i don't have the ability
to explicitly page break at will with a <bridgehead>, do i?

hints?  i'm really open to advice at this point.

rday

p.s.  i'm looking at the sourceforge listing for the FO Parameter
Reference, and i don't see how to automatically get new chapters
to start on an odd page.  i've already set "double.sided", so 
now i'm looking for suto odd page for new chapters.

looking for advice there as well.  

good night.

p.p.s.  current toolchain: xsltproc and FOP.


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