[Widgets] platform attribute for versioning

Hi,
This is an initial proposal to open up discussion about versioning in
the widgets configuration document format. The proposal is to include
a "platform" attribute that would be part of the <widget> element.

<widget platform="1.0" .../>

The platform attribute would be an optional non-negative float that
indicates to a widget user agent that a widget expects the APIs,
security model, and capabilities as specified by the widgets 1.0
family of specifications. The platform attribute is interpreted as
"the minimum platform version needed to run this widget". When the
value is missing, the widget user agent will assume the value "1.0".

In future versions of the widget specifications, the value would
change as needed (eg. 2.0) to enable new capabilities. For future
versions of the specification, authors may be required to declare the
attribute to enable any new features and APIs. If an author defines a
value greater than the supported version, the widget would be in error
and treated as a invalid.

Similar attributes are used by the configuration document formats of
Konfabulator (minVersion), Vista Sidebar Gadgets (minPlatformVersion),
and Google Desktop gadgets (minimumGoogleDesktopVersion).

Thoughts? comments?

Kind regards,
Marcos

-- 
Marcos Caceres
http://datadriven.com.au

Received on Thursday, 24 April 2008 04:18:09 UTC