On the last day of the consultation period I wonder if I may add a few notes about tags and plane 14.
An interesting point is that there exists the possibility of defining additional types of tagging using codes U+E0002 through to U+E001A. Yesterday evening I began wondering for what matters such additional types of tagging could potentially be useful. This within the constraints of tag characters themselves being restricted to an ASCII-like set of characters. Books in libraries are often classified with a code consisting of digits and a full stop character. For example, the number 515.53 is on a label which is still on the spine of a book which I bought in a sale of withdrawn books from a library. So, if U+E0002 were used to introduce a tag for the library book classification code, then a sequence starting with U+E0002 and using some other tag characters could be used to classify the subject matter of any document which is stored in computerized form. Editions of books are classified using International Standard book numbers. A tag code could be used to state an International Standard Book Number using tag characters. New concepts could be introduced. Suppose that a new system of codes were introduced, perhaps called something like International Literary Work Numbers and that any author could obtain some of these numbers, which numbers would have a format carefully designed so as not to be confusable with International Standard Book Numbers, perhaps by having a letter other than X within them (X being used in International Standard Book Numbers). Then if someone writes a poem, he or she could allocate an International Literary Work Number to the poem. In a document, the code U+E0004 could introduce the International Literary Work Number which Work Number would be expressed using tag characters. If the poem were on the web, most present day computer systems could ignore the tag characters, yet advanced futuristic software could search databases for specific codes or ranges of codes and hopefully find the poem. Yes, this is a potentially far-reaching line of research and it needs to be allowed the freedom to flourish. Looking further at the matter of plane 14, I am wondering whether there is scope for the eventual production of a vector graphics system to be encoded in plane 14. I have had some good success with my eutocode graphics system which is produced using codes from the Private Use Area. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/ast03000.htm http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/ast03100.htm Eutocode graphics uses 10 bit data input. If a system in plane 14 were produced, then 12 bit data input could be used, perhaps using all of the codes U+E2000 through to U+E2FFF for data input. Some of the codes in the range U+E1000 through to U+E1FFF could be used for control codes for the system, though not that many of them. At its present stage of development eutocode graphics uses only a few codes for control, all of them within the range U+EB00 through to U+EBFF of the Private Use Area. An interesting matter upon which I would appreciate some help please is as follows. In early 2002 I learned of a system called ViOS, which is a three-dimensional interface for the web. I learned about it from the newsgroup alt.binaries.education.distance which showed a graphic and provided a link to the http://www.vios.com website. Unfortunately, that website is no longer accessible. ViOS is a magnificent program, it still works well in offline mode, and is about 90 Megabytes in size. Inspired by the three-dimensional setting out of web pages in related groups used in ViOS, I am trying to devise a vios-inspired three-dimensional index system for the DVB-MHP (Digital Video Broadcasting - Multimedia Home Platform) system. I am designing this as an optional part of the eutocode graphics system. However, this eutovios system is designed to be implementable within a Java program of under 100 kilobytes when compiled, hopefully less. So eutovios is nothing like as detailed as ViOS. I am thinking in terms of a plane populated with objects, each of which can have a string of Unicode characters as a label and a string of Unicode characters as an action string so that the program knows what to do when the object is entered. The objects at present consist of three types, namely a cylinder stood on the plane, a cone stood on the plane and a sphere which can be at any specified height. My thinking is that the spheres will be markers for clusters of objects, the cylinders will lead to viewing a document or obeying a program and that the cones will be used for cross-referencing to related topics. Thus a collection of learning programs for distance education will hopefully be indexed in a three-dimensional visual-spatial setting so that related topics can be placed in proximity to one another. The eutovios system allows a particular three-dimensional environment to be set up using Private Use Area codes from the range U+EC00 through to U+EFFF for data and some codes from the range U+EB00 through to U+EBFF for control codes, some of these codes being particular to the eutovios system and some, such as the codes for the colours of the objects, being the same codes used for specifying colours in the eutocode graphics system generally. The objects thus all have symmetry about the vertical axis, which makes drawing out a scene simpler than if objects such as cubes were in use. The spheres display as discs, the cylinders display as filled rectangles and the cones display as filled triangles, each displaying the same shape regardless of the angle from which they are viewed: they do change size though depending upon how near they are to the present viewing point. An interesting activity is thinking about what objects have a shape which is symmetrical around a vertical axis and which would look good in such a program and which are expressible with a minimum number of supplied parameter values once one knows which type of object has been chosen. It is essentially just some of those objects which could be produced in brass using a lathe only and without using any of the screw cutting features of a lathe. I have tried to find out what has happened to ViOS. Does anyone know or remember having seen a news item in a magazine about what has happened please? I recognise that this question is somewhat off-topic but I have tried to find out in various places and have been unable to do so and this list does seem to have an ability of providing answers to many questions. Anyway, in relation to plane 14, I am hoping that in time it will be possible for such a graphics system, including various three-dimensional capabilities to become formally encoded in plane 14 as a ring-fenced option for use with particular protocols. It is at an early stage at present, so what becomes encoded may have far greater possibilities than what is being encoded now. Yet what is being encoded now does work and works well. It allows a stream of Unicode characters from a text file to produce a three-dimensional scene through which an end user can then move and select objects. This is all very futuristic and needs a lot more doing to it. At present I use a Java applet which is an extension of the original eutocode graphics test system which is on the web. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/eutocodegraphics.htm The test system for the eutovios system has buttons to simulate the push buttons of an infra-red remote control device of a DVB-MHP television set. Testing is by preparing a string of Private Use Area characters in the SC UniPad program obtainable from http://www.unipad.org and then using a copy and paste so as to paste the string into the text box of the applet, the draw button of the applet then being pushed to produce the starting point display. However, I feel that I do need to mention this now as the Unicode Technical Committee is about to consider what to do about tags and this is a related issue because it relates to plane 14. Perhaps all of plane 14 needs to be declared an area considered as deprecated in general terms, yet where codes for use with particular protocols can be defined by the Unicode Technical Committee, so that the potential for using such futuristic developments and encoding them within the Unicode framework is preserved? William Overington 14 February 2003 ---- For discoveries, In Private Use Area Phaistos Disc Script waits Haiku written by William Overington.
