Re: WOFF and extended metadata

On May 27, 2010, at 11:29 AM, Sylvain Galineau wrote:

> I thought it'd help if there was a way to add some level of extra metadata 
> that would be rendered reliably across browsers. If that's not needed, I'm 
> fine with just saying browsers may ignore anything the spec does not define.
> I feel that we're missing out on a very simple and reliable way to add value, 
> however.

Yes, yes. I'm not debating that. I'm trying to find the simplest way to do it. As I see it, there are two ways:

1. Establish a metadata-extension structure. Define what UAs would do with unknown elements outside of that structure.

My concern with this is that it draws a line between "in the spec" and "not in the spec." It seems that you would have to define the spec in your code to filter out unknown elements that occur outside of the metadata-extension boundaries. When metadata version 5.0 comes out, you would have to update your code to know about the new additions to the spec. That doesn't seem to fit your "write it once and never have to worry about it again" comment from yesterday. Or, maybe I am missing something?

2. Establish a some restrictions that govern the structure of the metadata in general. (Nesting, lang attribute, etc.) State that extensions are allowed and extensions that follow the structural rules may be displayed by a UA.

This makes it possible for UAs to display all elements, in spec and out, from version 1.0 forward without updating their code. The code would know about the structure, but it wouldn't have to know about the defined elements in the spec.

Tal

Received on Thursday, 27 May 2010 16:13:45 UTC