- From: Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org>
- Date: Wed, 06 Dec 2006 12:45:15 +0100
- To: mark.birbeck@x-port.net
- Cc: public-rdf-in-xhtml-tf@w3.org, SWD WG <public-swd-wg@w3.org>
- Message-ID: <4576AD4B.7000002@w3.org>
Thanks Mark, this explains the issue around 'role'. One question, though. Based on your description, the script should generate <#me> xh:role foaf:Person. right? Does it mean that there will be a fixed namespace for the 'role' attribute, defined by the RDFa group? Ivan Mark Birbeck wrote: > > Hi Ivan, > >> Caveat: I am not sure which RDFa version was taken into account by >> Fabien and by Elias. All these may not be 'bugs' but design, just >> referring to different versions of RDFa.... > > > I does sound like they are looking at different versions of RDFa. In > relation to @role and @rdf:type, I'm afraid some confusion was caused > by the premature adoption in one document of @role as defining > rdf:type. What @role expands to, along with whether @class can be used > in RDFa, have both been topics of much discussion. I'll just briefly > recount the various views, so that we have them in one place, and it > may help other implementers. > > (The other question, on XMLLiteral, is, as you say, still an open issue.) > > > THE '@ROLE AND @RDF:TYPE' DEBATE > > There was a view that @role should generate a triple that has a > predicate of rdf:type and an object which is the same as the @role > value. This approach was much favoured by people in the accessibility > space, with the idea being that if a 'div' plays the _role_ of a > toolbar, then it *is* a toolbar. In other words, if we have this: > > <div role="wai:toolbar"> > ... > </div> > > then to all intents and purposes we have this: > > _:x rdf:type wai:toolbar > > There is certainly a need for a shorthand for rdf:type, and those who > felt that @class shouldn't be used (see below) also favoured using > @role. > > However, just because something _plays the role of something_ does not > mean that it _is_ that thing. This is best illustrated with a look at > what the WAI group are doing with @role. > > The WAI group are defining taxonomies to use with @role, and they are > defining the characteristics of UI features like toolbars. In their > taxonomy they can say that 'a toolbar' has features A, B and C. This > would therefore mean that if we were to say that @role is equivalent > to @rdf:type, then we would be implying that anything that any HTML > element assigned to _play the role_ of widget would by inference have > all of the features that an object of this type would have. > > This is obviously not the case, and the aim of @role was always to > provide metadata that would allow some process to make informed > decisions about translations it might make to help users interacting > with a document. For example, if we had this: > > <script role="tooltip"> > ... > </script> > > a server-side process could know from some RDF taxonomy that 'a > tooltip' is only relevant on a visual system (agree with me here, for > the sake of the argument. :) and that this script can safely be > removed when rendering to a voice system. > > Or in this situation: > > <div role="menu"> > ... > </div> > > a server could know from the RDF schemas that if space is at a premium > (say, on a mobile device) then menus can be hidden or relocated. But > note that what is inside the 'div' for the menu is irrelevant. > > Anyway, we've now agreed that @role does not map to @rdf:type, and > that the triples generated for @role would be something like this: > > <div role="wai:toolbar"> > ... > </div> > > _:x xh:role wai:toolbar > > If some system wanted to add a further inference that xh:role => > rdf:type, then that is of course up to them. > > > @CLASS BEARING @RDF:TYPE DEBATE > > However, it is certainly the case the a construct that generates > rdf:types is extremely handy, and perhaps you could say, a necessity. > > In HTML, the obvious choice for @rdf:type is @class since its > semantics are both sufficiently vague but widely understood. But there > was some resistance to this, since it was felt not unreasonably that > using @class may be seen as 'hijacking' the attribute. > > The resolution was that since non-namespace prefixed values of @class > would only generate 'local' triples (i.e., triples that have no > meaning outside of the document) then it was pretty safe to use > @class. > > For example, this: > > <div class="address"> > ... > </div> > > would generate: > > _:x rdf:type _:address > > i.e., it would generate a 'locally scoped' notion of an 'address'. > This pretty much fits what is already happening on the web, since the > notion of address on your web-site will be different to the notion on > mine. But if we change our mark-up to this: > > <div class="foaf:address"> > ... > </div> > > we get the following, which is unambiguous: > > _:x rdf:type foaf:address > > Note that regardless of whether people are for or against RDFa, there > is enormous advantage to having globally agreed upon HTML class names. > By using QName-class names it means that I could define my own > personal CSS stylesheet that causes all FOAF contacts to be shown in > blue, whilst you could choose green. Provided that sites use: > > <div class="foaf:person"> > ... > </div> > > then we all know what is being said. > > I'd say that's pretty much the latest on these issues, and I believe > this continues one of the goals that we have of clearly defining how > to interpret an HTML document from the point of view of RDF. > > Regards, > > Mark > > > On 06/12/06, Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org> wrote: > >> >> >> Dan Connolly wrote: >> > >> > but I heard from Ivan that it produces different results >> > from Elias's parser. Did he report that problem? Hmm... >> > I can't find it in the -tf archives. >> > >> >> Actually, no, I have contacted Fabien directly. But you are right, it >> makes sense to document it here. >> >> http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/ is the original page where I detected the >> problem. Part of the page is RDFa-d, the whole page is GRDDL-able >> including the >> >> http://www-sop.inria.fr/acacia/soft/RDFa2RDFXML.xsl >> >> and there is a pointer to Elias' RDFa service >> >> script. >> >> The relevant XHTML portion is: >> >> <div class id="me" role="foaf:Person" ...> >> <h1 property="foaf:name">Ivan Herman</h1> >> ... >> <p> .... <a rel="foaf:schoolHomepage" >> href="http://www.elte.hu">.....</a> >> .... >> </p> >> </div> >> >> The relevant portion as produced by Elias' script output is: >> >> <foaf:Person rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/#me"> >> <foaf:name rdf:datatype="...XMLLiteral">Ivan Herman</foaf:name> >> ... >> <foaf:schoolHomepage rdf:resource="http://www.elte.hu"/> >> </foaf:Person> >> >> The relevant portion of Fabien's script output is (Fabien uses xml:base, >> so "#me" is o.k.: >> >> <rdf:Description xmlns:h="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" rdf:about="#me"> >> <foaf:name xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/">Ivan >> Herman</foaf:name> >> </rdf:Description> >> <rdf:Description xmlns:h="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" rdf:about=""> >> <foaf:schoolHomepage xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/" >> rdf:resource="http://www.elte.hu/"/> >> </rdf:Description> >> >> >> and I did not find anything that said >> >> <#me> a foaf:Person. >> >> In Fabien's output. >> >> There are several issues here. >> >> 1. Elias's script assigns both literal and resource objects to the >> subject identified by 'id' (see below on that one!), whereas Fabien does >> it for literal objects and not for URI-s. >> >> However, looking at the code again and having re-read the spec yesterday >> I realised that the correct coding should have been >> >> <div class id="me" about="#me"...> >> >> having added that, both scripts assigns the same subjects. >> >> What this means is that: >> >> - Elias' script is buggy, because it took into accound 'id' for all >> the objects and it should not have >> - Fabien's script makes this mistake for part of the objects. >> >> 2. The 'role' attribute is not understood by Fabien's script >> >> 3. Elias' script assigns an XMLLiteral datatype, Fabien does not. Elias >> follows the spec in this respect, but this has been reported elsewhere >> and I think it is still an open issue[1] whether the spec should be kept >> that way. >> >> >> Ivan >> >> >> [1] http://www.w3.org/mid/4549CAF0.8060506@w3.org >> >> >> >> -- >> >> Ivan Herman, W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead >> URL: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/ >> PGP Key: http://www.cwi.nl/%7Eivan/AboutMe/pgpkey.html >> FOAF: http://www.ivan-herman.net/foaf.rdf >> >> >> > > -- Ivan Herman, W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead URL: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/ PGP Key: http://www.cwi.nl/%7Eivan/AboutMe/pgpkey.html FOAF: http://www.ivan-herman.net/foaf.rdf
Received on Wednesday, 6 December 2006 11:45:38 UTC