Re: DOM based API

Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>, 2008-06-06 11:15 -0700:

> On Jun 6, 2008, at 10:55 AM, Doug Schepers wrote:
>> [1] http://sideshowbarker.net/gps/
>> [2] http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/english/service/imode/make/content/gps/
>
> These both seem to be a way to send location info to a server along with 
> an HTTP request (via an HTML extension), not a client-side API.

I guess. But more precisely, I think they could be described as
having the following characteristics:

  - a way for a Web application or document to cause a browser to
    tell a device it's running on to initiate a location query;

  - the results of the location query are returned to the browser
    from the device as a set of parameters representing the
    current latitude, longitude, and altitude of the device

  - the browser assembles those parameters into a query string, in
    a (semi)standard/expected form, which it then sends as part of
    a request to server running whatever Web application is
    specified (by the Web application or document that initiated
    the query) as the target that's expected to process the
    location data

  - (just as an aside) the Web application that's the target
    expected to process the location data may be the same
    application that initiated the query -- or it could just be
    some other, 3rd-part app that groks getting an HTTP request
    with a query string in the expected form
    

> There doesn't seem to be a document representation of the
> location info itself, it is just a string sent as an extra
> request parameter, at least in the DoCoMo case.

It is in the KDDI/Au case also. The results the two different
markup mechanisms/syntaxes produce are essentially the same.

  --Mike

-- 
Michael(tm) Smith
http://people.w3.org/mike/
http://sideshowbarker.net/