[oslc-core] rich text fields

[Arthur Ryman]

Rob,

OSLC should define some standard properties that can contain rich text. I 
assume you are therefore asking what should be done if the existing 
service can't handle rich text, i.e. it can only handle plain text. 
Fortunately, HTML and XHTML give a simple way to downcast rich text to 
plain text, namely just throw away the elements and keep their content. 
Browsers do this when they get elements they don't understand. If the 
existing service was capable of some amount of rich formatting then it 
could map what it could to its native format. However, the native format 
would have to be mapped back to XHTML when interchanged.

Regards, 
___________________________________________________________________________ 

Arthur Ryman, PhD, DE


Chief Architect, Project and Portfolio Management

IBM Software, Rational

Markham, ON, Canada | Office: 905-413-3077, Cell: 416-939-5063
Twitter | Facebook | YouTube







From:
Robert Elves <robert.elves at tasktop.com>
To:
Arthur Ryman/Toronto/IBM at IBMCA
Cc:
oslc-core at open-services.net, oslc-core-bounces at open-services.net
Date:
03/30/2010 12:54 PM
Subject:
Re: [oslc-core] rich text fields
Sent by:
rob at tasktop.com



Thanks for your response on this Author.  XHTML does make a lot of sense 
in terms of tool support and xml interchange, so I guess my only question 
now is what happens in the case where an existing service requires plain 
text (i.e. text/plain, so could be text possibly in wiki syntax) to be 
posted to it? The OSLC wrapper for such a service I guess would then need 
to do its best at converting the posted XHTML to its native syntax?

-Rob

On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 12:02 PM, Arthur Ryman <ryman at ca.ibm.com> wrote:
Robert,

If we support multiple rich text formats then it increases the burden on
all consumers and providers, for example to do full text search, or to
present rich text in web pages, reports and documents.

It simplifies interchange and collaboration if OSLC standardizes on a
single format for rich text. IMHO, XHTML is the best candidate since it is
widely supported, is a W3 standard,  and is XML compliant, which makes it
easy to parse. Most text editors can export and import XHTML.

You mention wiki text, but each wiki has its own special syntax. AFAIK,
there is no standardization or media types for any given wiki dialect.
Wikis convert their markup to HTML anyway for display on the web so it
would seem that any tool that captured rich text on a wiki would have the
capability to convert it to HTML. There are tools for converting HTML to
XHTML, e.g. HTML Tidy. If this conversion is done at interchange time then
it simplifies all other consumers.

Regards,
___________________________________________________________________________

Arthur Ryman, PhD, DE


Chief Architect, Project and Portfolio Management

IBM Software, Rational

Markham, ON, Canada | Office: 905-413-3077, Cell: 416-939-5063
Twitter | Facebook | YouTube







From:
Robert Elves <robert.elves at tasktop.com>
To:
oslc-core at open-services.net
Date:
03/30/2010 10:41 AM
Subject:
[oslc-core] rich text fields
Sent by:
oslc-core-bounces at open-services.net



Hi Group,

I need to raise a concern about strict use of xhtml in the current core
spec.  Although this will work great for those services that use html, I'm
concerned that for many services out there that use another syntax (i.e.
text / wiki), this may unnecessarily complicate both the producers and
consumers. Is it worth exploring inclusion of a media type attribute on
these properties?

Thanks,

-Rob


--
Robert Elves
Tasktop Developer, http://tasktop.com/
Mylyn Committer, http://eclipse.org/mylyn
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-- 
Robert Elves
Tasktop Developer, http://tasktop.com/
Mylyn Committer, http://eclipse.org/mylyn