Hierarchical naming and external DAV members

Hi there!

I am quite new to this list, so let me introduce myself:

Around 10 years ago a small group at Graz University of Technology started
research on a completely new Hypermedia system. Nobody really knows anymore
why it was called Hyper-G, but at least there are some good theories. Some
month later at CERN another group started their campus information system
research...

In 1994 Hyper-G was quite an academic success. First prototypes were built
and the European Space Agency (ESA) installed their first Hyper-G based
information system. That was the time I came into the project and wrote my
master thesis (a part of the Windows client Amadeus) Since then Hyper-G was
spin-off from the university and was renamed to Hyperwave. My job was to
port Hyperwave Information Server (HWIS) to Windows NT and I am still
working in the MS area part of Hyperwave R&D (this does not necessarily mean
that I love all of MS!!)

Enough of history, back to presence: We are currently developing WebDAV
support for HWIS. In our system, names (used to generate the URL) are not
restricted to be hierarchical, unlike in all filesystem based servers. The
standard now talks of DAV controlled resources (internal members) and non
DAV controlled resources (external members). Unfortunately most DAV clients
treat both types of members the same and thus are construcing wrong URLs for
our non hierarchical external members.

So my questions: Why is the HREF attribute absolutely necessary but not used
for the URL when accessing an object? Why is the MS implementation of WebDAV
client (Web Folders) not distinguishing between the display name and the
name? Does anybody have experiences with WebFolders, e.g. that they are
using their own, out of the standard attributes?

regards,
   Gerbert

___________________________________________________________________
Gerbert Orasche, Senior Software Engineer
Hyperwave Software R&D, Albrechtgasse 9/2, A-8010 Graz, Austria

Tel: ++43-316-820918-11
Fax: ++43-316-820918-99
mailto:gorasche@hyperwave.com
http://www.hyperwave.com
___________________________________________________________________

Received on Friday, 2 July 1999 06:09:46 UTC