On Monday 23 October 2006 7:38 am, Gannon Dick wrote: > > You do start to lose me just a little bit when you talk about a generic > API for meta data. For reasons outlined here ... > > http://www.geocities.com/gannon_dick/TheBigPicture.pdf (case sensitive) > > I believe that a meta data API needs a required core of elements. When > all is said and done, and at least where meta data is concerned, the > appearance of information is not information. Re-formats/rewrites > don't do harm, but they don't do much good either. My fear is that a > generic API would fail to put proper emphasis on key > (independent/isolated/monatomic) elements.
Currently, I understand that Metadata API has the metadata elements hardcoded so that if you wanted to add a new document metadata element 'Sponser' you need to change the code and the UI panel to add it in. If you wanted to add metadata for graphics would would to build new API for that. The ODF metadata enhancements will provide the ability to tag document elements with metadata. Rather than build many hardcode metadata API modules - document-metadata, graphic-metadata, chart-metadata, text-section-metadata, it is proposed to have 'generic API for meta data' as convenience for the developers and writes of extension / add-on modules. A generic API makes no assumptions about what metadata elements will be included in the default set. That is a separate issue. (The OOo2DBK add-on module I mentioned yesterday - adds about 100 document metadata elements for French government requirements. It uses user-defined fields rather than the limited document metadata functions) I do not really seen how a API can "put proper emphasis on key (independent/isolated/monatomic) elements." We are talking about about code as basic as file-open, file-read, file-close. This is more a content and application design issue. I understand your fear - often 'generic support' is code for no support at all or 'if you want it you can add it in yourself'. This not we we intend. A bit like the well know 'limited only by your imagination' which means no knows how to use it. David -- ------------------- David N. Wilson Co-Project Lead for the Bibliographic OpenOffice Project http://bibliographic.openoffice.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
