[oslc-core] [oslc-core-internal-workgroup] OSLC Core properties for ui previews - suggested change to Core Spec Appendix A

[Ian Green1]

Hi Nick
I understand the pressure for this but wonder about pushing too much UI 
into OSLC representations, especially for resources (such as DOORS 
requirements) that don't have icons.  I think it makes sense to have icon 
and iconText as common properties, but consumers should understand that 
these are optional.

The goal of all the information being contained in the representation 
would require the icon binary to be base64 encoded in the domain resource 
- I assume that you're not suggesting that?  So two GETs will be required, 
or N+1 for a query with N resources in the result set.  A reminder of 
guidance on http caching of those icon resources would be appropriate. 
Also, Simon's suggestion seems relevant for getting all those icons in a 
single http request.

best wishes,
    -ian

ian.green at uk.ibm.com (Ian Green1/UK/IBM at IBMGB)
IBM Rational

oslc-core-internal-workgroup-bounces at mailman.hursley.ibm.com wrote on 
06/11/2013 17:34:51:

> From: Nick Crossley <ncrossley at us.ibm.com>
> To: oslc-core at open-services.net, oslc-core-internal-
> workgroup at mailman.hursley.ibm.com, 
> Date: 06/11/2013 17:34
> Subject: [oslc-core-internal-workgroup] OSLC Core properties for ui 
> previews - suggested change to Core Spec Appendix A
> Sent by: oslc-core-internal-workgroup-bounces at mailman.hursley.ibm.com
> 
> For performance reasons, it is desirable that a single http GET 
> request on a resource provided all the information necessary for a 
> human-readable summary about that resource, and that a query can get
> all the information necessary for a human-readable display of a 
> table of the results.
> 
> The common properties defined in Appendix A of the Core 2.0 spec, 
> http://open-services.net/bin/view/Main/OSLCCoreSpecAppendixA, 
> include many properties that help with this, including for example 
> oslc:shortTitle.  Unfortunately, there is one key omission: 
> oslc:icon.  The oslc:icon property is defined as part of the compact
> representation of a resource in the Core IU Preview page at http://
> open-services.net/bin/view/Main/OslcCoreUiPreview, and is also 
> listed as a property of the publisher property of the service 
> provider and service provider catalog resources, but is not included
> in Appendix A as a common property.  Many OSLC domains have taken 
> the set of properties listed in Appendix A as the basis for defining
> the recommended properties for that domain; the result is that few 
> (if any) OSLC resources today include the oslc:icon property in the 
> standard representation, but include it only in the compact 
representation.
> 
> The consequence is that an application that wants to show the icon 
> in a query results table has to perform an additional GET to read 
> the compact representation.
> 
> I propose that we add oslc:icon to the list of common properties in 
> Appendix A, and recommend its inclusion in the standard set of 
> properties of OSLC resources from all domains.  For completeness, we
> should probably include oslc:iconAltLabel and oslc:iconTitle.
> 
> I do not believe it is necessary to include oslc:smallPreview or 
> oslc:largePreview in the Append A list, since we would not want the 
> actual preview contents to be included in the default representation
> of a resource; we want that to be obtained by a separate GET.  We 
> could achieve that by including these two preview links in the 
> Appendix A properties, but with the recommendation that they be 
> normal externally referenced resources with an http URL - but that 
> has no performance advantage over the current technique of having 
> those previews embedded as inline resources in the compact 
> representation, and has the disadvantage of requiring these 
> resources to have an externally addressable URL.
> 
> Nick Crossley._______________________________________________
> oslc-core-internal-workgroup mailing list
> oslc-core-internal-workgroup at mailman.hursley.ibm.com
> 
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