Syntax for controlled vocabularies #453
Description
Related to #337 and tangentially to #162
We should add a syntax for controlled vocabularies leveraging the terms system. In such a system, if the contents of a variable calls for a term, the localized term is rendered rather than the verbatim variable text.
For example:
Style:
<text variable="genre"/>
Data:
{"genre": "term:working-paper"}
Result (en_US):
Working paper
Result (de_DE):
Arbeitspapier
This has several useful purposes. First, it allows for descriptive variables like genre, medium, and status to be localized, facilitating easier changing of locales without requiring locale-specific data entry. This is especially useful for item types like thesis and broadcast, which have a number of common subtypes (Masters Thesis, Doctoral Dissertation, Podcast, TV Broadcast) but for which we don't want to add separate types. Second, it allows for style-specific localization of these fields (e.g., "Advance online publication" vs. "Epub" for status). Third, it could be combined with a structure in names data to allow for customizable and localizable creator labels (e.g., labelling the author of a map as "cartographer").
We are already planning to implement a value-substitution for punctuation via the semicolon term and similar (#162); the proposed general term substitution could build on similar citation processor infrastructure.