Network Service Discovery

Hi all,

As you know, "Network Service Discovery" [1] is really a promising API
for "R4. Discovered by personal devices" [2].

I'm examining UPnP/DLNA in detail.
I'm trying to develop a JS library handling UPnP/DLNA
based on the APIs defined in "Network Service Discovery".
I'm developing the library for WinRT (Windows 8),
so I can handle UDP and multicast.

I realized that there are some inconvenience points in "Network Service Discovery".

1.
The NetworkService interface [3] has the config attribute.
It gives a device description data (XML data from an AV device).
This data includes some important information about the device,
for example, <frendlyName>, <manufactuere>, <icon>, etc.
These are essential for apps handling UPnP.
But the config attribute gives the XML as string.
I know that we can use "DOM Parsing and Serialization" [4].
A XML Document object is more convenient than a string in this case.
I think that the NetworkService interface should give an attribute
which exposes a XML Document object.
At least regarding AV devices, a device description data is an XML document.
I think that exposing it as an XML Document object makes sense.

2.
The spec defines the getNetworkServices() method [5].
My understanding is that calling the method doesn't necessarily
cause M-SEARCH.
I think that the spec should give a method for M-SEARCH.

Does anyone know about "Network Service Discovery"?
If you agree, I'll try to propose it to DAP.
How do you think?

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/discovery-api/
[2] http://www.w3.org/community/websignage/wiki/Web-based_Signage_Use_cases_and_Requirements#R4._Discovered_by_personal_devices
[3] http://www.w3.org/TR/discovery-api/#networkservice
[4] http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Parsing/
[5] http://www.w3.org/TR/discovery-api/#dom-navigator-getnetworkservices


Best wishes for a happy new year.
Futomi

--
Newphoria Corporation
Chief Technology Officer
Futomi Hatano
--
futomi.hatano@newphoria.co.jp
http://www.newphoria.co.jp/

Received on Wednesday, 9 January 2013 13:42:46 UTC