Re: What are the problems with IDML?
Daniel W. Connolly (connolly@w3.org)
Mon, 26 Aug 1996 02:12:52 -0400
Message-Id: <199608260612.CAA10798@anansi.w3.org>
To: Jim Taylor <JHTaylor@videodiscovery.com>
cc: www-html@w3.org
Subject: Re: What are the problems with IDML?
In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 23 Aug 1996 21:07:37 PST."
<s21e1d9f.065@videodiscovery.com>
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1996 02:12:52 -0400
From: "Daniel W. Connolly" <connolly@w3.org>
In message <s21e1d9f.065@videodiscovery.com>, Jim Taylor writes:
>Suggestions:
>
>IDML is already broken into four groups. Three of these groups
>(publisher, info, system) contain meta information that probably belongs
>in META tags or separate documents. This is information such as
>publisher name, location, keywords, robot instructions, etc. Since IDML
>has proposed specific formats for these, then all that's required is a meta
>tag identifying the document as IDML compliant, thus vouchsafing that
>information in the meta tags is in the format expected by an IDML parser.
>Then the information is also available to other parsers that look at meta
>tags.
From the responses in this thread, I get the impression that folks
are not reading the Distributed Indexing and Searching workshop
report. A lot of work went into that report. Please read it.
In fact, anybody who responds to this thread who hasn't read
pretty much all of http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Search/ is
wasting everybody's time.
For example, it proposes a standard mechanism to do _exactly_ what
Taylor suggests: identify the schema of the metainformation used in a
document:
=============
http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Search/9605-Indexing-Workshop/ReportOutcomes/S6Group2.html
3. LINKAGE TO THE REFERENCE DESCRIPTION OF A SCHEMA
It is judged useful to provide a means for linking to the reference
definition of a schema as well. The proposed convention for doing so
is as follows:
<LINK REL = SCHEMA.schema_identifier HREF="URL" >
Thus, the reference description of one metadata scheme, the Dublin
Core Metadata Element Set, would be referenced in the LINK HREF as
follows:
<LINK REL = SCHEMA.dc HREF = "http://purl.org/metadata/dublin_core" >
==========
>The fourth IDML group consists of product information. This really can't
>be shoehorned into meta tags, but instead of making way too many new
>attributes, the IDML guys could create classes. This allows a number of
>things to work nicely. Span tags could be used to identify existing text:
> <span class="id-product-name>A Hard Day's Night</span>
> <span class="id-product-description>Released on CD in 1988.</span>
> $<span class="id-product-price>13.47</span>
>
>(Is this a misuse of span?)
Nope. In fact, this sort of thing was raised at the workshop, but
we didn't cover it. I suggest we extend the meta convention
in the document above to cover classes, as well as meta names.
So it would be:
<link rel=schema.idml href="http://..../IDML">
<meta name="idml.publisher" content="...">
...
<span class="idml.product-name">lkjsdjl</span>
(and you could use em or b or any other HTML tag in stead of span, if
you like. The key is class, not the tag name)
>Non-visible information such as currency, keywords, etc. could still be
>contained in IDML tags. Obviously many people will want all the
>information stored in one place. Instead of using the very goofy
>"url-redirect" attribute, they should use the established id attribute to
>identify each product (in place of the part-number attribute) and then put
>a link element in the header:
>
> <link rel="IDML" href="whatever">
Another good idea.
>This is a quick spew at the end of a very long day, so it may not be
>coherent or well thought out, but it's certainly more consistent with
>established standard ways of doing these things than the current IDML
>proposal.
Agreed.
Dan