In VOS it in fact would be easy to build a little tree of the types with
different names to make them easier for people to work with, while
keeping their real names hidden.
So you can make an object like "/t" and select out the specific top
level versions used from the containers ("namespaces"?) with the big ids.
E.g.
/t/vos -> /vos:0011223344556677889900aabbccddee/vos
...Has various children for core types...
/t/a3dl -> /vos:0011223344556677889900aabbccddef/a3dl
...Has various children for 3d types...
/t/mytypes -> /vos:992288337744beffc38aa3712cdd219a8e/mytypes
...Has various children for custom types...
/foo type="/t/mytypes/foo"
/bar type="/t/a3dl/object3d"
Maybe we even enshrine a container like /t or /_types as standard place
to put the "working set" of types, as a convention that all user
interfaces use, and so when they are telling a user what the type of a
vobject is, they can just strip off the prefix, or when preseting the
user with a list of possible types, just provide a listing (or tree
view) of the children of /t, etc.
Or a UI can just look at the type definition to get a user friendly type
name.
But OK, in the general case, we need to come up with ways like this to
help users navigate vobjects, whether in a particular application or in
VOS stuff like this, without having to put a lot of special stuff in the
user interface clients.
Reed
_______________________________________________
vos-d mailing list
vos-d@interreality.org
http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
