Steve Zilles (Independent): To
repeat my challenge, can we find the key 5-7 things to focus on
and not try to solve all the world's problems?
TV Raman (IBM): And how do you
measure success?
Unidentified Speaker: I think
success is when we have the same people who authored HTML in the
1990's do web apps.
Patrick Schmitz (Nirvana): I
disagree -- there aren't as many people who need to expose
functionality as those who just have something to say. I think
that compound documents leverage the same framework as web apps,
but they are different things. There are many, many more people
who just want to say something.
Chris Lilley: Those people do use
software, for showing their family photos or talking to strangers
for 10 minutes. A criterion for success would be buying
inexpensive shrink-wrapped software that lets you author that. If
you want something more complex, you have to be a programmer
anyway. Some things are more than interactive documents and are
in some sense applications.
Doug Schepers (Independent): Small
applications can be aggregated into larger ones, a color picker
and a graphics app for example, making a compound aggregate web
app by people who aren't programmers.
Patrick Schmitz (Nirvana): Then it's
constrained to people who have done CGI and PHP.
Glen Gerston (Ideaburst): The web
has lots of copied-and-pasted code. We could develop tools that
allow people to generate that type of code, or have the runtime
environment have standardized widgets with drag and drop and an
app. We set out to make a facilities management app. It took
about two months and we made it more extensible, easier to use,
easier to maintain, and now it is two years. It's not easy to
write interfaces from scratch. We need the tools to be able to
deliver those types of applications in a short timeframe. We
spent most of that time on our interface widgets. I'm sure the
Laszlo people could tell you how long it took them to develop
widgets in Flash. When the tools are there, people will start
developing things.
Doug Schepers (Independent): That's
the real revolution -- when people start using it.
John Boyer (PureEdge Solutions):
I am not sure about
Chris Lilley's point. Spreadsheet
users are not programmers but they can leverage the power of a
computation system to get their work done. One of our enterprise
customers is converting 10,000's of forms over to this technology
and the people who can use point-and-click are several pay grades
below programmers.
Alex Hopmann (Microsoft): I am
hearing lots of good comments; people are hopeful that it's
possible to bring tools to people to let them do. That's nothing
to do with this workshop. If you want to help non-programmers
build things, like Lotus Notes or Apple Hypercards does, that's
not where design by committee can help.
Glen Gerston (Ideaburst): Everything
is design by committee. We need file access, we need things that
real applications have. There are security issues, but the
problem can't be solved, or minimized. Having developed some SVG
applications, it's not there for applications yet. We need more
things to make it easier to do.
John Boyer (PureEdge Solutions):
Alex's company and others produce spreadsheets; it gets this kind
of stuff out to the masses. Standardizing business processes like
this gives the underlying ability to create design tools to
manage complexity.
Glen Gerston (Ideaburst): Yes, we
could resell our widget set, but it's slow and inefficient
compared to a runtime environment. It's applicable to standards
organizations. Dynamic layout management is computationally
intense. Doing it like HTML tables is more efficient than in the
running code.
Dean Jackson (W3C): Alex can respond
in the next break.
Jalava Teppo (Helsinki University of Technology): Styling is done with CSS, time ordering done with timesheet sequence. XForms used, and then the HTML.
Patrick Schmitz (Nirvana): Have
you thought about compound documents, not just
multi-namespace?
Jalava Teppo (Helsinki University of
Technology): We have just started on this project and have
not done that work yet.
Mark Birbeck (x-port.net): Is the
only thing that changes visibility, or is the CSS connected to
the timeline?
Jalava Teppo (Helsinki University of
Technology): Yes, you can change the server class from the
timesheet.
Mark Verstaen (Beatware): We are
putting in the same sandbox for the desktop, Excel and xxx. This
approach is good for in-depth developers. For generalizing the
use of SMIL, we need to have tools for the normal users of SMIL,
not programmers; we need tools.
Jalava Teppo (Helsinki University of
Technology): Yes, we use selectors.
Ian Hixson (Opera Software): You
might want to look at the CSS WG presentation levels, which is
not as powerful.
Erik Hennum: DITA is the Darwin Information Typing Architecture, an OASIS XML standard for human-readable topics (content objects). Evolving niches can be retired in favor of more general designs.
Patrick Schmitz (Nirvana): How
about styling, event flow, and timing across compound document
boundaries?
Erik Hennum: DITA takes a standard
XML perspective of separating styling and presentation from
content. It doesn't take a stand on timing.
Patrick Schmitz (Nirvana): In
transclusion one author may prohibit change and the including
author wish to control it. Similarly, interaction in sub
documents vs. at the compound document level.
Erik Hennum: I don't think that DITA
has addressed those issues, allowing application of the
transcluded fragment to provide style or interaction hints to the
transcluding document. It is an interesting question. I am glad
you raised it.
Patrick Schmitz (Nirvana): How about
fragment context when transcluding? XML fragment
interchange...
Erik Hennum: Not addressed yet.
Michael : Device, Browser,
Pre-processor, Document
Michael : All processing steps
for
Michael : A proposal
Cameron McCormack (Independent):
Do you use constraints for layout on different devices?
Michael Pediaditakis (University of
Kent): We use selection constraints for templates for
different devices. You choose the most appropriate one.
Mark Birbeck (x-port.net): I argued
for a dynamic InfoSet in my paper; wiring in conditions and
calculations and state automatically maintained. You want the
same mechanism but different rules. I would argue for moving this
into a module and do it without XML markup inline -- the rules up
at a metalevel.
Paul Topping (Design Science): Screen readers can read the web page and query the MathPlayer supports accessibility and use its math-to-speech conversion. The screenreader has to reach through the HTML to do this. Search is similar. MathZoom magnifies equations.
Paul Topping (Design Science): The font has to be taken from the enclosing paragraph and there is interchange between the widget and the HTML layout engine, unlike in displaying images. CSS doesn't deal with expressions in the middle of a paragraph and a comma. The comma flops down to the next line when you shrink the window. There needs to be a richer model for nested content, with role indicated.
Paul Topping (Design Science): If an application needed to know that it could speak the math, or implement certain features, the server needs to know.
Doug Schepers (Independent): Have
you tried using SVG fonts, which don't need to be installed and
can be used as text.
Paul Topping (Design Science):
SchemaSoft did a MathML to SVG conversion; it might have
performance problems and accessibility.
Chris Lilley: To clarify, use SVG
Fonts, not SVG. Use your own renderer, so it would help with
baselines.
Paul Topping (Design Science): We
have the OS access and an installer so it can install fonts. SVG
would not solve our problems.
Mark Birbeck (x-port.net): We have XForms using MathML inside hints and select1 in FormsPlayer with your MathML player, with nested content as you describe.
Paul Topping (Design Science):
I'm not up on XForms, but would MathML be able to specify its
relationship with XForms if the label were an entire paragraph?
Or a MathML expression with hats? Would it do enough formatting
to know where the baseline is?
Mark Birbeck (x-port.net): I agree,
you need the communication. The layout is done by MathML and we
don't know what is happening. That is the same with the Adobe SVG
player; it manages its space, but the space is controlled by the
parent.
Dean Jackson (W3C): Let's pick this
up again.
Paul Topping (Design Science):
Internet Explorer has an interface where we can specify the
baseline and I'd like that on all platforms.
Mark Birbeck (x-port.net): I
agree.
Steven Pemberton (W3C/CWI): On day of release, more implementations than any other W3C specification on day of success. There are major implementations from IBM, Novell, Oracle, Sun, xport.net, .... And major users from US Navy, Bristol-Myers-Squibb, Frauenhofer, Daiwa, British Life Insurance Industry, and more...
Steven Pemberton (W3C/CWI): The central ideas of XForms are that:
model) from the markup for the controls
to enter and change the data.Steven Pemberton (W3C/CWI): -Memory -IO -Calculation -Presentation
Steven Pemberton (W3C/CWI): The data is one or more XML documents, internal or external. Input, output, data properties, calculations...
Steven Pemberton (W3C/CWI): Like spreadsheets, declarative. Uses XML Events. Usually don't need scripting, but still an option.
Steven Pemberton (W3C/CWI): In the 80's I build a completely declarative system. It ran on an Atari ST. I found a 1000 line analog clock code. Here is the declarative code for my clock (shows example about 20 lines).
Steven Pemberton (W3C/CWI): XForms can be hosted in different languages, use CSS for presentation, bind to SVG, etc. There are even model-only (no UI) implementations of XForms.
Paul Topping (Design Science): I
notice that the baseline of the text in the label doesn't match
the label.
Steven Pemberton (W3C/CWI): I am
running this in IE and haven't done any CSS control.
Paul Topping (Design Science): Does
XForms deal with it?
Steven Pemberton (W3C/CWI): We use
CSS. CSS3 is adding properties to address the subparts of
controls.
Cameron McCormack (Independent):
Can the model affect things other than the controls? Can it
affect CSS properties or positions?
Steven Pemberton (W3C/CWI): That's
not the prime intention but you can see examples from Mark
Birbeck.
John Boyer (PureEdge Solutions): Here is my form, it is a blackjack game.
John Boyer (PureEdge Solutions): Here is another one, a 15 puzzle. We have made all these fun things with the same feature set as forms, and we view them as Webapp-complete.
John Boyer (PureEdge Solutions): Here is a tax form example. There might be 10,000 pages of tax codes, but not for form 2290. We use the same form with the underlying model to drive the desktop appearance, the wizard appearance. Notice that all my information from the wizard is now in this traditional view. I declared UI bindings to the same underlying XForms processing model. We have some custom controls that understand things like phone numbers. For signatures, we have digital signatures using the certificates. Shows ("This is digitally signed and cannot be altered" popup on field.) The same underlying model drives all this stuff. Next button shows underlying rules in form filling in values in spreadsheet-like fashion and updating the rules for the document. It doesn't matter if I use the wizard-based version or the traditional version. Or an oral presentation -- it's the same underlying data processing model.
John Boyer (PureEdge Solutions): A container for the data, the relationships, their properties. Here is a required field which I have to either tab twice to get out of or enter data, because it is required. (Shows calculation of quantity, price, etc.) The host language extends the calculations. Our XFDL language allows you to control font color and image based on instance data. The XForms model gives us relevance -- when I select COD the credit card controls become invisible and unselectable (using XFDL to control the presentation).
John Boyer (PureEdge Solutions): We can control relevance, which controls display and interaction. There are features for dealing with dynamic data such as adding to sets.
John Boyer (PureEdge Solutions): The computations are dynamic, now it is the sum of 5 rows.
John Boyer (PureEdge Solutions): If the attachment is a picture it is visible.
Kelvin Lawrence (IBM): How are
you rendering this?
John Boyer (PureEdge Solutions): It
is the PureEdge rendering agent. See http://www.pureedge.com/products/product/xdmos/xfdl/por.xfd
for a demo.
Chet Haase (Sun): In your table
demo with rows, it repainted the entire window. Is that an
implementation detail? Was it going back to the server?
John Boyer (PureEdge Solutions): It
was an implementation detail, and not going back to the server.
It was an artifact of laziness in our rendering engine.
Doug Schepers (Independent):
There is no visual depiction of XForms -- it is all underlying
data? What we saw is not like HTML Forms, it is not a widget set,
right?
John Boyer (PureEdge Solutions): To
some extent. XFDL as a skin means that XForms has a "input"
control and the basic purpose is user-based intent for collection
of data. We can wrap an XFDL field around it; where the field is,
or what font to use, is controlled by XFDL. But XForms provides
the model.
Micah Dubinko: These are my personal opinions, not necessarily endorsed by my employer.
Micah Dubinko: To communicate data, you need a rich addressing system. Early drafts of XForms used new inventions, but as that went through the gauntlet of W3C process, it was replaced with stuff that people already know. It started with a multi-year process.
Micah Dubinko: It needs to work with script better.
Micah Dubinko: I get email about my book with XForms that doesn't work. At least 4 out of 5 are problems with namespaces -- declared, or used with XPath. I wrote an interactive validator using RelaxNG and some document scans based on XPath. You can access this from http://www.xformsinstitute.com But namespaces are a problem. Anything that comes out of the W3C will use them. In the short term, expect your users to be noticing this pain. We might be seeing some workarounds. For a longer term solution, if you are feeling this pain, make yourself heard more and take it to the highest levels in the W3C.
Micah Dubinko: I think the
direction with your suggestion is good; we could build bridges.
There is good work still to be done.
Chris Lilley: I am puzzled by why mobile developers can do
selectors but not XPath?
Håkon Lie (Opera): That's like
saying you have done JavaScript so you can do more.
Chris Lilley: So it's code size?
Kelvin Lawrence (IBM): Could you
say more about namespaces? It it hand coding?
Micah Dubinko: From the errors I
have seen, namespace URIs are really long and you need a lot of
them and you can't fit them in your head. XPath and Namespaces
are a problem -- XPath doesn't use the default namespace. The
boundaries between two different namespaces are also a
problem.
Mark Birbeck (x-port.net): We
touched on these yesterday.
<p><b></p></b> Should we not insist on
fixing that? We need to make it easier to author. We just have to
live with namespaces. I will give Opera a hand in implementing
XForms in Opera if necessary; we can knock it out in a week if
XPath is the problem.
Doug Schepers (Independent): XForms is really cool. I can see what it can. What can't it do? What other components does it need for XHTML, SVG, XBL? Suspend and resume for file system is not defined. What does XForms need to be a team player in an applications framework for the web?
John Boyer (PureEdge
Solutions): Some of the things from XFDL are
incorporation of XML DSIG for hooking into other
authentication systems. Wrapping up in a compound document.
Hooking up other types of controls, like attachments. Unified
handling of attachments without having to do MIME
attachments. Font and color handling.
Steven Pemberton (W3C/CWI): We
produced 1.0 and are now in requirements for 1.1. 1.0 is an
80/20 cut. 1.1 is the a standardization of extensions in
existing implementations and low-hanging fruit.
Micah Dubinko: The 1.1
requirements document is published.
TV Raman (IBM): What does XForms need to be a team player? It is not a standalone vertical silo. It is a language that can be embedded in different containers. A necessary condition for doing that is that you cannot and should not specify everything. We didn't specify save and restore in the browser sandbox and in a custom container, as they are different. XFDL is a good example. You can criticize the XForms spec for this but this is a strength. Ditto for binding; XForms doesn't have a widget set. XForms has a set of abstract user interface controls; we leave how they are presented up to the implementations and the datatypes are the controls are bound to. XForms isn't yet Emacs so it doesn't solve everything... Dave alluded to this; a mechanism to bind specific themes or renderings to XForms controls is one thing that it needs. XForms spec should not specify this; Mark Birbeck uses XBL. These should be done in another specification that shows how to bring together XML, XML Events, XHTML, CSS, SVG, Voice XML, etc.
John Boyer (PureEdge Solutions): So what is enough to specify is the question -- we need to enough specified so we can design business processes around XML data.
Chet Haase (Sun): This was
partial answered, but from yesterday there is recognition
that SVG doesn't do layout, etc. From XForms I get the sense
that it doesn't do so much are you trying to be the Webapp
answer? Or are other technologies doing things and XForms and
compound documents.
John Boyer (PureEdge Solutions):
That's a great question. The XFDL skin includes the ability
to drop a JAR in the form to imperative extensions.
Chet Haase (Sun): So that's
markup plus forms. How about multiple markup?
John Boyer (PureEdge Solutions):
Host languages are providing these answers.
Micah Dubinko: XForm is the
intention layer. You need something else on top of that to
embody that.
Steven Pemberton (W3C/CWI): That
is the same approach for how HTML was designed -- the
semantics and then the presentation layered on top.
Steven Pemberton (W3C/CWI):
The stylesheet where you don't link it in the document is the
idea approach. The ideal is to bind onto XForms and not put
the forms into the language. Layer it over. Don't have SVG
elements with a forms ref, but use XBL or something to bind
the SVG onto the XForms intention language.
Chris Lilley: I see the value in
that. People link to stylesheets. Suppose you had an SVG
slider; keeping them separate and using binding leads you to
the packaging. Historically the web sends you a root and that
points you to images. We need a small manifest.
Steven Pemberton (W3C/CWI): In
my 1980's system, the stylesheet had a parameter that applied
to the document, not the other way around. It's much more
flexible that way.
Mark Birbeck (x-port.net): ...
Peter Stark (Sony Ericsson):
We haven't focused on XForms in mobile because it doesn't
help us with games and images and entertainment, not because
of implementation complexity. We would use the input modes
system if it were a separate spec.
TV Raman (IBM): It's an
appendix...
Leigh Klotz (Xerox): Let's get XML+CSS+SVG+XForms processors out there in critical mass so that we can spark adoption.
Steven Pemberton (W3C/CWI): Give
Leigh first choice?
Dean Jackson (W3C): Do you run
Linux?
Leigh Klotz (Xerox): Yes.
Dean Jackson (W3C): You get one
choice -- the book.
Cameron : We have profiles for XHTML+MathML+SVG, etc. But to get some extensibility, you don't want to have to construct a new browser. That's where XBL comes in. Then we have a framework. You get plugins with a blank white square, but you can't get much interaction between the different parts of the document. If everything was converted to SVG at the base level then you could put MathML in. So use XBL and make up your own elements. We need to take note of how the parent document does its layout: for example, XHTML has the CSS box model and SVG has things where you put them.
TV Raman (IBM): So you say if you
need a compound rendering model for MathML and XHTML and so on,
map it all to SVG and then use XBL. Mark Birbeck raises the
accessibility issue. If you map it to you an SVG canvas, that
just gives me PostScript + Eventing, essentially News from the
late 1980's. Do you have any thoughts about how to preserve both
DOMs? The range control in XForms that you map onto the spin dial
tells me what I need, not the SVG DOM.
Cameron : The way it was is that
each element had a shadow tree attached to it, as the SVG that it
equated to. The rendering could be a separate tree, but you have
to keep them in sync.
David Baron: The way XBL works is
that the original DOM tree stays around. It gives you additional
content nodes and the original DOM API navigates the original DOM
tree, and a second DOM for the rendering tree with additional or
different content.
TV Raman (IBM): Then do I play
Tarzan and jump from tree to tree?
David Baron: Yes, but you don't have
to.
Glen Gerston (Ideaburst): The
original is not lost. In terms of layout, you mentioned XBL.
Probably declaratively, the runtime rendering engine would be
faster to handle it directly.
Cameron : Probably yes for grid
layouts.
Mark Birbeck (x-port.net): On the
two trees, it's not just the shadow tree. There may be
intermediate steps, for example an abstract control. An input
control on an IP address can be four further controls that
themselves are abstract. Can that be solved with a shadow tree
storing the four inputs and then a shadow tree on each
input?
TV Raman (IBM): Recursion gets
harder with the shadow tree approach.
Mark Birbeck (x-port.net): You need
the abstract binding on the source side and the rendering model
then itself might have a shadow tree, but that's a separate
issue.
Ian Hixson (Opera Software): With
XBL/RCC, we shouldn't let those technologies be a temptation to
send proprietary markup over the wire; you should send XForms or
whatever.
Cameron : If you have the means to
convert it to what you know then what is the problem?
Dean Jackson (W3C): Thank you.
Glen Gerston (Ideaburst): Something that the user interacts with without having to go the server necessarily.
Glen Gerston (Ideaburst): Adobe sells fonts; they have to make a GIF for their type faces on a regular basis. So instead we have an app embedded in an HTML page, enter text, and a point size and get a sample. One problem is that the runtime environments don't play well with the browser. It works in IE on a PC but not on a Mac. That's a major problem.
Glen Gerston (Ideaburst): Here is an online "Adobe Arena" ticket purchasing system. It downloads data and you can roll over the sections and see what's available, or change the event. We get a running tally, and a form to buy, and then we get a printable SVG ticket. We can cut and paste directions, and zoom in on the map.
Glen Gerston (Ideaburst): We got an error because the JavaScript tried to insert into the SVG before it was rendered. We can pan and zoom without reloading, and raw on the map. We can do overlays. The artist drew this in Illustrator and the programmer hooked it up.
Glen Gerston (Ideaburst): You can't use pre-defined interfaces, so we need interface widgets. This opens in a new window, from the browser. The content resizes and we can switch tabs programmatically.
Joshua Randall (France Telecom):
Do you want these in SVG or just somewhere?
Glen Gerston (Ideaburst): We think
that the SVG runtime could be made to do it but we could see it
elsewhere.
Tantek Çelik (Microsoft): On
the runtime environment, the standard set of widgets, do you mean
semantic or visual?
Glen Gerston (Ideaburst): Visual
widgets. Tree views, menus, phone interfaces, etc.
Tantek Çelik (Microsoft):
Take a look at the CSS 3 basic user interface module appearance
property.
Tantek Çelik (Microsoft): In
the stadium example, the URL stayed the same, even from one
concert to another. What if I click the back button.
Glen Gerston (Ideaburst): It goes
back to the previous page.
Tantek Çelik (Microsoft):
That seems broken.
Glen Gerston (Ideaburst): That's a
problem of running in a web container.
Mark Verstaen (Beatware): The
look and feel of the widget has to be customizable. You enter the
framework war then. Now we have tons of frameworks from
Microsoft, Apple, and others.
Glen Gerston (Ideaburst): We would
like to see even standard looking widgets, perhaps customizable
with CSS. To us having some standard set of objects would be
good. Our interfaces are obviously very stylized, but we could
create applications.
Mark Verstaen (Beatware):
Customizing a widget is not just the look; for a widget you need
three animations. For a tree view, you have the mouseover effect,
etc. It's endless.
Alex Hopmann (Microsoft): Raise your
hand for button, checkbox, slider, date picker, etc. The spectrum
is an application platform thing. Standards groups are poorly
suited to come up with ones for everyone.
Dean Jackson (W3C): Let's end
this.
Leigh Klotz (Xerox): The best is the
enemy of the good.
Doug Schepers (Independent): SVG is a great medium to deliver WebApps. I agree with Glen that we need a set of widgets. We do not need them to be automatically provided. Even if you have sliders, do you want them left, right, top, ticks?
Ian Hixson (Opera Software): You
said that HTML and SVG didn't work together. Shouldn't you make
them interact better rather than adding the features
together?
Doug Schepers (Independent):
Absolutely. With the SVG plug -in they won't work well together.
Like everybody else here I want to hear that they all work
together.
Chris Lilley: Adobe says that the plug-in works in some platforms
but not others. Tantek said there was no W3C spec to implement
it.
Tantek Çelik (Microsoft):
That was a few years ago.
Chris Lilley: Is there a spec
now?
Tantek Çelik (Microsoft):
No.
Chris Lilley: So how can we do it?
Doug Schepers (Independent): I think
we need them in SVG and we need them soon.
Steve Zilles (Independent): I am
retired from primarily IBM and Adobe but am presently an
independent consultant. I was co-chair of the XSL 1.0 WG and have
20 years experience of working with documents, and worked on HTML
and CSS, and am a document guy rather than a Web App guy. It
turns out if you want to do compound documents in a practical
way, you come back to web apps.
Steve Zilles (Independent):
Compounding means a lot of things together: text+graphics+math is
a simple example. Chemical formulae is another. No one vendor
wants to do them all. Authors need different subsets. Compound
documents inherently compound things that don't come from the
same place.
Steve Zilles (Independent): The first four I already knew and the last three are new from this meeting.
Steve Zilles (Independent): An interface that, given a property provides APIs
Steve Zilles (Independent): Which document?
Steve Zilles (Independent): It is a mistake to say that any one of them is in charge. The more important question is where the capability is provided.
Steve Zilles (Independent): A two-pronged approach
Daniel Austin (Sun Microsystems): Who is in charge? Consider a set of rules associated with one of the components is in force at any time.
TV Raman (IBM): I agree that of
the things that want to be in charge, they should be
daisy-chained. In the list, though, XForms definitely does not
want to be in charge. Do you have thoughts on a VM that would be
an XML browser and could dynamically bootstrap itself, so it
wouldn't be monolithic?
Steve Zilles (Independent): No, I'm
a document guy and I don't have an answer. The collected
intelligence from the room does have thoughts...
Dean Jackson (W3C): We will have ten minutes per question for staged discussions and then 30 minutes of open discussions. Here are my proposals:
Daniel Austin (Sun Microsystems):
I don't agree with device specific profiles. I think we should
find the best solution to this problem, not in a way specific to
a certain class of devices.
TV Raman (IBM): I think we should
factor the question of device specific profiles (a bad idea) from
the low-hanging fruit of bringing together a group of W3C specs.
If we don't bring them together, perforce SVG will develop little
bits of XForms. etc. These two problems need to be
factored.
Peter Stark (Sony Ericsson): The W3C
should take the lead in showing how the SVG, HTML, and SMIL
should be combined. I support that SVG/XHTML/SMIL is a pragmatic
approach and an urgent need. On device specific profiles, I don't
like the term. SVG, XForms, etc. should have different
conformance levels so the industry can support them
incrementally.
Håkon Lie (Opera): For
compound documents yes, but application developers want DOM. If
we do web applications, we need Turing completeness.
Jon Ferraiolo (Adobe): You have to
think about who is talking -- Peter from Sony Ericsson is in the
industry and has an urgent need from his industry. Others want a
nice, clean architecture. Let's do that on a grand scale, but let
specific industries solve their needs. As Dan said, if we don't
do it, someone else will do it and W3C won't lead the web.
Mark Birbeck (x-port.net): The first
task should be aggregation of what people are already trying to
do. I'm not sure what a profile means, but an if it is an
aggregation, yes. But then through what vehicle to bring it
together? We don't know the answers, but one of the questions
from before Cannes is the MIME type, for example, unmentioned
this week. It isn't obvious that we will quickly resolve it.
Start with the vehicle with the bigger picture, but we will
address even more issues that fall out. Let's bring people
together and see how problems in SVG and XForms communicate and
make that a requirement for the bigger WebApps thing.
Rich Schwarzfegger (IBM): We have
errata in the DOM working group. Let's fix that.
Steven Pemberton (W3C/CWI): Within
W3C, DOM is a central part of our technology and not having a DOM
WG is a problem. We need someone to own that space.
Dean Jackson (W3C): Should the
W3C provide a profile of XHTML, SVG, SMIL, and possibly
XForms.
Leigh Klotz (Xerox): CSS?
Dean Jackson (W3C): Should the W3C
provide a profile of XHTML, SVG, SMIL, CSS, and possibly
XForms.
Alex Hopmann (Microsoft): A limited
restricted profile?
Dean Jackson (W3C): I don't think it
means all possible variations.
Chris Lilley: All the existing proposals have taken XHTML Basic,
SMIL Basic, SVG Tiny. But then in great detail for
interoperability -- width and height on image, etc. The glue that
is missing.
Alex Hopmann (Microsoft): That
touches on what I feel, that a lot of the basic specifications
are not complete yet. They don't give interoperability. We don't
need a specific profile; rather, we need to get the specs of
these test suites and normative detail right to solve the initial
goal of interoperability.
Chris Lilley: Yes, that's necessary
but not sufficient. You need to check that they do fit
together.
Jon Ferraiolo (Adobe): The biggest
activity would be the interoperability test suite.
Håkon Lie (Opera): The specs
are done...
Tantek Çelik (Microsoft): We
are missing the test suites, though. Håkon Lie (Opera): They all have good
benefits; is this tiny, or what? Do we cut down or do a mega
thing?
Steve Zilles (Independent): I think
the main reason why a combination is important, is that despite
the interest in the best working groups, there isn't sufficient
time to explore the cross-WG issues. The main value is a forum
for addressing the issues that go outside an individual working
group's purview. For the straw vote, would the people who care
about this man the working group to do this thing? It won't be
individual test cases for the specs. In the property set,
divergence happened because there was insufficient conversation,
not malice aforethought.
Charles Ying (Openwave): I think the
effort should be smaller. Test suites are an excellent start. The
scope should initially deliver the integration of two fronts --
XHTML and SVG. Then we can look at next steps. That's for our
market; but which standards depends on who is involved in the
effort.
TV Raman (IBM): I want to
re-emphasize the focus on combination and not the profile issue.
There are examples of two: XHTML+ MIME document. When I wrote the
XHTML+Voice profile I looked at it and it is a good document.
Three gets more interesting not at the DTD or Schema level, but
at the processor level. Final, let me echo Steven Pemberton and
Rich Schwarzfegger's DOM issue.
Charles Ying (Openwave): Even
integrating two core W3C standards (XHTML + SMIL) still needs an
accurate conformance test suite and use cases. We need to solve
issues like this first before addressing additional
standards.
Glen Gerston (Ideaburst): Do you
mean an embed or mixed-namespace?
Jon Ferraiolo (Adobe): When I gave
the Adobe position paper, I suggested that keeping it small would
focus on external combinations, not inline. The external one is
easier. You don't have to worry about CSS styling across
boundaries, for lower-hanging fruit.
Vincent Hardy (Sun Microsystems): Look at what it takes to develop the specs. We tried to make a case about what happened with implementation complexity. Bigger profiles are harder. This is orthogonal to target devices. For SVG, Tiny is more successful because of the mobile industry, but also because the implementation barriers are lower. Still it is too high. For the WG, it is hard to get people to take minutes, do test suites, review specs, etc.
Scott Hayman (Research in Motion): I would like to echo Charles, Vincent, and Jon. Small steps. Carriers are doing it. We need five years to pull everything back together.
Dean Jackson (W3C): We couldn't vote on the straw poll because we could not define the question.
Dean Jackson (W3C): Let's suppose that a WG is chartered to examine Web Applications requirements; Steve used the phrase "virtual machine."
Daniel Austin (Sun Microsystems):
Is that the cart before the horse?
Steve Zilles (Independent): I said
create an incubator group, not a working group. It is a lighter
weight, for requirements, use cases, and implementations of the
pieces for a more formal process.
Daniel Austin (Sun Microsystems):
The first requirement for the group for requirements would be
solving the compound document problem. Web Applications are the
cart and Compound Documents the horse. I can have one that isn't
the other. Then tackle them in the sequence we need to solve
them. We can't solve the Web App problem without first solving
the compound document problem.
Glen Gerston (Ideaburst): I am in
favor of a group, but 2 to 3 years won't help. We need a
specification for a runtime environment to say what it has to
pass.
Håkon Lie (Opera): Use cases
is a better starting point for stakes in the ground; we need to
work quickly.
Mark Birbeck (x-port.net): The compound document problem is many problems in different contexts; editing, potential shape for guiding the user. People draw a distinction between the documents and applications. There are some things such as the MIME type question, but in the main the problems are inseparable. On the Virtual Machine, I suggest that we aggregate what we already have. Take the DOM spec; it is a virtual machine. It is specified in a heavy way, as an API. I think a declarative markup version of the DOM API, as done with the XML Events specification, is a good idea. It is more manageable and easier to incorporate into other specifications. For factoring, it becomes easier to build on top of the specification. I propose only one new module, system (closing applications, clock, etc.) Everything else already has a corresponding feature.
TV Raman (IBM): There are enough Xeroids in the room to ask, is the document the interface? In 30 years will we still be asking this? We have had discussions during the W3C QA about how to write specs where the test cases drop out. So, take existing specifications such as SVG, XForms, SMIL, and stitch them together. Let's write actual angle brackets at the start, and at the end the test cases. Solve the low-hanging fruit first: MIME type, loading into a DOM, initialization, propagation of events. If solve those four, then how to package them. There is no new spec here.
Steve Zilles (Independent): My comment is on the issue of do we need to define what an application is? Or is an application different from a document? My answer is that it's irrelevant and doesn't matter. What facilities do we need to get work done? Mark just needs the facilities to write the code to get the work done, and the prospective incubator should be focused on that.
David Baron: There might be
confusion between how compound documents should work and an API
such that different programs can implement different languages
within the compound document. The DOM 2 spec says how events
propagate, and CSS says how cascading imperatives work, without
namespaces. The issues are more about the API of how to do that
with multiple implementations.
Chris Lilley: I agree; with a link
sometimes, you want inheritance. Sometimes you want to stop
inheritance and want a link. That's the extra bit people
want.
Alex Hopmann (Microsoft): On the
proposals around use cases, my concern is simple use cases. A
calculator is simple, but more sophisticated things with DHTML
and more complex things are what you need to demonstrate in an
interoperable way. Use cases don't help there.
Mark Birbeck (x-port.net): We do have the specs for CSS etc. but they smack of a world with a monolithic browser controlling the entire environment, not for how it works with modular software. If we are happy to wait for Mozilla to implement MathML and then SVG and then XForms, OK. But people want MathML now. People want to incorporate it now. The browser doesn't provide the means to hook these things in. CSS is defined but we don't say how a module knows it is now green. Are there CSS events? A dynamic InfoSet module?
TV Raman (IBM): The cynical thing
is that we are creating open tags without close tags and an
ill-formed web. We had two discussions. What did we
conclude?
Dean Jackson (W3C): I am willing for
someone to stand up and suggest a conclusion.
Philip Hoschka (W3C Interaction Domain
Leader): I would recommend a straw poll on priorities on
work items.
Dean Jackson (W3C): A work
item?
Philip Hoschka (W3C Interaction Domain
Leader): XHTML+SVG+SMIL? An incubator? MIME type for
markup?
Leigh Klotz (Xerox): Note that on
XHTML+SVG+SMIL the only communication with the server would be
name-value pairs.
Suresh Chitturi (Nokia): Would
the complexity rise or fall when you combine documents, or keep
them separate?
Jon Ferraiolo (Adobe): So the
minimal possible to meet the requirements?
Suresh Chitturi (Nokia): See what we
are gaining.
TV Raman (IBM): We've had the broad
brush conversation, which set of markup languages, what
VM/dynamic browser. Identifying those as work items won't move us
forward. Let's identify the specific items and use those to build
things let people move forward. Then let a thousand flowers
bloom.
Suresh Chitturi (Nokia): That's
the old idea of profiles. We need a specification for the
profile.
Chris Lilley: You need test cases.
The mobile profile really does exactly what they agree to.
Daniel Austin (Sun Microsystems): If we go down this path of specific profiles, we will wind up with an addition to the ad hoc solutions. And we have a Note for these already (XHTML+MathML?). Are we going to proliferate the number of ad hoc solutions?
Mark Verstaen (Beatware): The
question is not will there be a profile, but will they the W3C
have a XHTML+SVG profile? It will be shipping regardless.
TV Raman (IBM): If it's shipping in
October, does the W3C need to?
Chris Lilley: Vodaphone has four
tiers of phones. The top three will ship with SVG and XHTML in
October. We don't want "Select Vodaphone Profile."
Rich Schwarzfegger (IBM): Do the
authoring tool up front and put it in your plan.
Jon Ferraiolo (Adobe): There are
authoring tool vendors in the room. What percentage of HTML is
authored by hand? You can do markup for flowing text and it works
OK but more visual stuff...as in the mobile space, you need tool
involvement.
Rich Schwarzfegger (IBM): Why can't
I just draw this? How do I pull it all in together? How do I make
that easy?
Mark Verstaen (Beatware): There are
tools, drag and drop re-use, creation, etc. You need to specify
the profile today (Nokia, Sharp, etc.) The way that bitmap fonts
is not the same, focus across languages is not the same. We
solved this problem in my company and can make money, but we
don't think it's the right way.
Dean Jackson (W3C): (writes) "Develop a specification that combines "profiles" of W3C Technologies, primarily focused at the mobile market space with a conformance test suite." I've not added conformance levels (Tiny, Basic, etc.)
Dean Jackson (W3C): Show of hands
for Good Idea and Willing to Participate?
Robin Berjon: And opposed?
TV Raman (IBM): And how about XHTML
+ SVG + XForms?
Steve Zilles (Independent): If you
form a group, the group should decide.
TV Raman (IBM): Let's solve the
problems that enable these.
Dean Jackson (W3C): The group can
decide once created.
Tantek Çelik (Microsoft): The
use case is not acronyms.
Jon Ferraiolo (Adobe): Let's go to the second one first:
Dean Jackson (W3C): (writes) Charter a (incubator) group to address:
Jon Ferraiolo (Adobe): Two groups
in parallel. So what Steve Zilles suggested...
TV Raman (IBM): If there are two
groups, the short term has no guarantee to produce something
compatible with long term.
Joshua Randall (France Telecom): You
don't know the MIME type for XHTML+SVG, but let's stay away from
specific mobile problems and solve generic compound document
issues generically.
Alex Hopmann (Microsoft): How
open-ended it is makes a difference for me. The mobile guys say
that the specs are there but they need details about how to hook
them together. You didn't mention ECMAScript or DOM so you're
talking about the content space.
Dean Jackson (W3C): Yes.
Alex Hopmann (Microsoft): And add
CSS.
Mark Birbeck (x-port.net): I think we should narrow this first task and not make the web applications work depend on it. We are requested to solve a specific problem of October in the mobile space. Just say there is an XHTML+SVG MIME type with a long name: application/xml+svg+xhtml, define a Schema that mixes them, and ship it. We don't pretend that it feeds into web applications, and separate the issue.
Robin Berjon: It's not just document -- SVG Tiny supports MicroDOM. Right now mobile stuff is entertainment. With more DOM and more information I would spend more money. It should be a strict profile, with exact user agent specifications.
Jon Ferraiolo (Adobe): Yes,
Suresh, can you list the companies who standardized the MicroDOM:
Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Sun, IBM, etc. There is a large area of
interest in scripting on mobile devices from big players. On the
MIME question: Vodaphone is assuming that there is an outermost
document type, .HTML or .SVG. You don't need a new document type.
HTML Object or SVG foreignObject. But Vodaphone doesn't do the
SVG foreignObject, just standalone SVG.
Steven Pemberton (W3C/CWI): So why
do we need a spec?
Jon Ferraiolo (Adobe): Vodaphone has
a 25-point list they want to give to the W3C.
Mark Birbeck (x-port.net): Is the
object tag the only way? How do you get an A inside SVG?
Jon Ferraiolo (Adobe): If you want
to see the the SVG document you click on it.
TV Raman (IBM): IF you look at the
two extremes, for October, an XHTML+SVG thing that says how to
combine, MIME type, syntax, Schemas, that doesn't need a WG. That
is a W3C Note. Especially for October. But ensure that what it
submits is an XML Instance not a name-value pair. That will give
you longevity. Let's not do the 1994 kludge of name-value
pairs.
Tantek Çelik (Microsoft): A
quote: "What not to email. Email is safe unless it contains
programs. Data and documents are fine. If you send me a program I
will not read it." Tim Berners-Lee. Now, note that at the highest
levels of the W3C the difference is acknowledged.
Robin Berjon: Nobody said there was
not a distinction.
Tantek Çelik (Microsoft):
Steve did.
Joshua Randall (France Telecom): The
WD for August 2002 for XHTML+SVG+MathML. Isn't it already
it?
Jon Ferraiolo (Adobe): It is just
the syntax.
Chris Lilley: No, that is the
horrible but necessary DTD modularization validates. It proves
that DTD modularization works. It does not give you a working
document.
Daniel Austin (Sun Microsystems): It
works on the screen.
Chris Lilley: ...
Mark Birbeck (x-port.net): I see -- Masayasu asks who gets the event when you click; SVG or XHTML.
Unidentified Speaker: Let's try to get a conclusion here.
TV Raman (IBM): Jon, the problem
is that you wanted by October is not simple any more. When you
add SMIL you need to solve it again. You can get a W3C note by
October though.
Jon Ferraiolo (Adobe): A
clarification. The Vodaphone thing is locked; they do not want
the W3C to take it over; they want it taken over by a standards
organization going forward. There is no imperative on the W3C to
do a profile within six months. But a following Spring or Fall
2005 thing is something the W3C could take on and might represent
low-hanging fruit.
TV Raman (IBM): Is it a six month or
12 month deadline? In 18 months we can do the right thing.
Steve Zilles (Independent): A
third question: If there is to be a profile, who thinks it should
be done in the W3C?
Dean Jackson (W3C): 19 Elsewhere?
0.
TV Raman (IBM): Attach a
timeline.
Dean Jackson (W3C): ASAP? 21? Ad not
ASAP? 0?
Dean Jackson (W3C): Based on that feedback of a majority, I believe that the W3C could take the next step to propose a charter and let the membership and public comment.
Suresh Chitturi (Nokia): I want
the W3C to ensure that OMA and 3GPP endorse it.
Chris Lilley: I agree and we have
relationship with 3GPP and are building with OMA.
TV Raman (IBM): Do these need to be
working groups or just notes?
Dean Jackson (W3C): Thank you very
much Raman; good feedback.
Dean Jackson (W3C): At W3C? 23?
Not at W3C? 2.
Dean Jackson (W3C): ASAP? 23? Not
ASAP 2.
Ian Hixson (Opera Software): Both HTML 4 and XHTML 1 and any level of CSS.
Dean Jackson (W3C): We've just
voted on a group to examine use cases and this sounds like a use
case.
Tantek Çelik (Microsoft): You
haven't asked good enough questions for at least half the
room.
Alex Hopmann (Microsoft): There are
about 46 people in the room and about half of them didn't vote. I
think that's not an overwhelming interest.
Robin Berjon: That's a pretty good
vote for a standards organization.
Alex Hopmann (Microsoft): Of a two
day workshop?
Jon Ferraiolo (Adobe): Relative to
the binary workshop?
Robin Berjon: In the binary workshop
it was 30% or interest, and now we have an active WG. This sounds
like a fairly good commitment and fairly overwhelming
interest.
Chris Lilley: The formal commitment
can come only from AC Reps.
Dean Jackson (W3C): Leigh has taken minutes. Leigh's minutes are going to be the official ones. How should we validate that the minutes are correct?
Steven Pemberton (W3C/CWI): As long as they are posted as draft, then it's fine and after a week they are public.
Dean Jackson (W3C): Who does not want Leigh to post the draft minutes to the public list and then declare them final one week later? No objections.
Action 2004-06-2.1: Leigh to post draft minutes to the public mailing list.
Alex Hopmann (Microsoft): (leaves)
Action 2004-06-2.2: Dean to finalize minutes one week after workshop.
Kelvin Lawrence (IBM): At the 50,000 ft level, I think there is a danger we can get fixated on what we can do as technical guys who can write spec. We can pick some MIME types, but we should be talking about industry interoperability events to get people together.
Daniel Austin (Sun Microsystems): We should properly divide up our problems with the W3C Processing Model group. We don't want them to get too far down and ambush them. Let's make sure this activity is well advised of what we intend to do.
Dean Jackson (W3C): For XHTML and HTML, and every DOM level, who believes "Develop declarative extension to HTML and CSS and imperative extensions to DOM, to address medium level Web Application requirements, as opposed to sophisticated, fully-fledged OS-level application APIs."
Dean Jackson (W3C): For 8,
against 11.
Kelvin Lawrence (IBM):
Example?
Ian Hixson (Opera Software): The
Opera Web Forms 2 proposal. One example would be to add a
required attribute to the input element.
Tantek Çelik (Microsoft):
This proposal mixes a lot of things that people want and don't
want.
Dean Jackson (W3C): For XHTML and HTML, and every DOM level, who believes "Develop declarative extension to HTML and CSS and to address medium level Web Application requirements, as opposed to sophisticated, fully-fledged OS-level application APIs."
TV Raman (IBM): What is appalling about this workshop is that we had 100 people in the room six years ago that HTML was dead and we started XHTML. If we ask again this again today, what will we be asking six years from now?
David Baron: Conflict means normatively disagree.
Dean Jackson (W3C): For XHTML and HTML, and every DOM level, who believes "Develop declarative extension to HTML and CSS and to address medium level Web Application requirements, as opposed to sophisticated, fully-fledged OS-level application APIs."
Dean Jackson (W3C): 8 for, 14 against.
Dean Jackson (W3C): Thank you to
Adobe for providing the room and food.
Chris Lilley: Thanks to Dean Jackson
for doing a great job.
Dean Jackson (W3C): I will be
bugging you to get the slides. I will send one more spam when the
meetings are complete.