Technical Report on Capability Classes

Hi,

A new technical report is available from my web page. The mechanism proposed
(capability classes) have some similarities with document profiles and media
queries.

Using capability classes to classify and match CC/PP and UAProf profiles
HP Labs Technical Report 2002-89
http://www-uk.hpl.hp.com/people/marbut/capClass.htm

ABSTRACT
In order for a web server to provide optimised content to different client
devices it requires a description of the capabilities of the client known as
the delivery context. In previous work we demonstrated DELI, an open-source
library that allows Java servlets to resolve HTTP requests containing
delivery context information in CC/PP or UAProf formats. Subsequently DELI
has been incorporated into the Apache Cocoon XML publishing framework in
order to demonstrate how delivery context information can be used in
conjunction with content transformation via XSLT. During this work, it was
found that it is cumbersome to match this information using constraints
written in XPath. Furthermore there is no easy method of abstraction so that
common sets of constraints may be reused in multiple stylesheets. This
report describes an alternative mechanism for delivery context matching
called capability classes. This report outlines how to implement capability
classes and how they may be applied to various content specialisation
techniques such as content transformation, negotiation or generation. It
also compares and contrasts capability classes with device classes and media
queries. 

Mark H. Butler, PhD
Research Scientist                HP Labs Bristol
mark-h_butler@hp.com
Internet: http://www-uk.hpl.hp.com/people/marbut/

Received on Friday, 12 April 2002 05:49:36 UTC