having trouble making changes to the handbook

[Trev]

Ernie Luzar wrote on 24/05/2017 21:53:
>> Are you referring to the tags which comprise the XML markup?

> Yes the "chapter.xml" files with content enclosed with <  >  like
> <indexterm>  </indexterm>
> Is this markup notation referred to as "tags" or is "markup notations"
> the correct way to reference them as a group?

XML Markup comprises tags which are used to denote XML elements and 
attributes.

> Where are the intended usage meanings of all the different
> combinations of markup notations documented at?  Looking at the
> online handbook and back tracking to the xml markup notation is not a
> easy method of identifying the xml markup notation to use to add new
> information to the handbook information.

You need the DTD (document type definition) that is being used. The 
FreeBSD documentation uses the DocBook DTD.

If you've already installed the textproc/docbook-xml port, the DTD is 
part of it.

> Now here is the really puzzling question. How would I write
> documentation about these xml markup notations showing the real xml
> markup notation code in the doc without it being interpreted as
> something that gets converted? example
> <para>Here is what the xml markup notation code looks like;<title>As
> seem in the raw code.</title></para>

You would use the less than and greater than XML character entities in 
place of the less than and greater than signs. For example, <para>