Document Editing and Document Services

Editing Taskforce,

I have good news: the Document Services Community Group has launched (https://www.w3.org/community/services/).

Based upon recommendations and indications of best practices that document services not directly edit documents, I am presently brainstorming interfaces for document services which: (1) provide a queue of actions, and/or (2) are event-based, signaling when actions arrive.

By “actions”, I mean scripting objects which describe actions for document editors or Web browsers to perform as end-users edit or review documents. For example, one type of action might involve decorating or highlighting a segment or portion of document content with a described meaning. In this way, a document service would not directly edit a document to decorate or highlight content, it would, instead, enqueue or raise an event with respect to a decorating or highlighting “action” represented as a scripting object in a standard way.

This approach, describing types of actions with scripting objects, appears to simplify the design of document service interfaces while requiring an extensible vocabulary for described actions. Interfaces for document services will encapsulate the protocols utilized, encapsulate whether services are free or paid-subscription-based, encapsulate signing into services as needed, encapsulate session management, and encapsulate the utilization of services from multiple tabs. Interfaces for document services will provide an aesthetic means for document editing scripts and Web browsers to utilize multiple user-selected and user-configured document services simultaneously as end-users edit and review documents.

Any feedback on these ideas?

I am also presently brainstorming how best to design for editing-reactive scenarios, scenarios where document services can react to the editing of document content or to document mutations. I wonder whether there might also be any recommendations or best practices with respect to apprising document services as documents are edited?


Best regards,
Adam Sobieski