Re: SWITCH is an imprecise tool for offering alternatives.

Hi Jim



> sort of semantics that I'm interested in, it fails particularly where the
> user is fluent in German, but also can understand a bit of English (so
> would rather get English than nothing, but German is best.)



I'm not sure that the switch evaluation in SVG is done in the same way as it
is done in SMIL, if yes: in your example

you can specify as default alternative the one that corresponds to
systemLanguage="en" and so you can write:



 <switch>
   <text systemLanguage="en">Yes</text>
   <text systemLanguage="de">Ja</text>
   <text >Yes</text>
 </switch>

So, here we are sure that the user will receive something in all the
situations (the text "Yes" or "Ja")



> At the HTTP content-negotation level, this is nicely handled by q values,
> and I think that the switch mechanism could easily be extended to use the
> same.  (not just language but all different switch.)  This will have the
> advantage that users can really get to the content which they prefer
> rather than leaving it wholly in the hands of the author which is shown.



Here, I think we have two choices: either



- To specify the preferences in the document side and so here extending the
Switch element with new attributes..

 Or

- To specify in the switch just the selectors (systemLanguage,
systemBitrate, etc.) and leave the user preferences

specification to the protocol level (as it done in the transparent content
negotiation 'TCN' of  HTTP/1.1)

so the user agent can evaluate the selectors according to its profile
(capabilities but also preferences)





Best regards



Tayeb*





----------
Tayeb Lemlouma
http://www.inrialpes.fr/opera/people/Tayeb.Lemlouma/index.html
Opera project
National Research Institute in Computer Science and Control (INRIA
Rhône-Alpes, France )
Office B213, phone (+33) 04 76 61 52 81, Fax (+33) 04 76 61 52 07.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Ley" <jim@jibbering.com>
To: <www-svg@w3.org>
Sent: Monday, October 28, 2002 7:52 PM
Subject: SWITCH is an imprecise tool for offering alternatives.


>
> (Apologies for partial post...)
>
> Hi,
>
> In SVG, we have the switch element for offering alternative content e.g.
>
> <switch>
>   <text systemLanguage="en">Yes</text>
>   <text systemLanguage="de">Ja</text>
> </switch>
>
> This is very useful, but it's not very flexible, and can't contain the
> sort of semantics that I'm interested in, it fails particularly where the
> user is fluent in German, but also can understand a bit of English (so
> would rather get English than nothing, but German is best.)  to have
> this, we really need to be able to show the quality of the different
> types, in the above the German and English are of identical quality, but
> it's easy to imagine a situation where one language is much better
> quality than the other.
>
> At the HTTP content-negotation level, this is nicely handled by q values,
> and I think that the switch mechanism could easily be extended to use the
> same.  (not just language but all different switch.)  This will have the
> advantage that users can really get to the content which they prefer
> rather than leaving it wholly in the hands of the author which is shown.
>
> Jim.
>
>
>
>

Received on Tuesday, 29 October 2002 02:53:17 UTC