Some comments on Widgets 1.0: Packaging and Configuration

Hello,

As I started looking at the testability of the "Widgets 1.0: Packaging
and Configuration" specification, I spotted a few things that I thought
I would mention (based on the CVS editors's draft [1]):
 * the relax NG schema doesn't include a definition for the <update> and
<requires> elements; it doesn't include the declaration of the mode
attribute on the root element, of the img attribute on the <author>
element, of the width, height and alt attribute on the <icon> element,
of the files attribute on the <access> element
 * 6.10 "When the access element is absent, a widget user agent must
deny access to networked resources and to plugins", and presumably to
the file system as well; instead of separate boolean attributes, what
about having these as a single token-based attribute (e.g.
access="network plugins")
 * some of the green notes highlight interoperability problems - this
sounds like material for conformance requirements rather than just
notes. 
 * "Author requirement"s probably ought to called "Authoring
requirements" since you're not trying to define conformance for authors
but for what they author
 * there seems to be well-known filenames that have special semantics
attached in the widgets specs (at least config.xml, signature.xml, the
locale directories); the list of reserved filenames sounds like
something that should be explicitly documented in the packaging spec; in
particular, it should probably be recommended not to use 2 and 3 letters
names for directories at the root of the archive (trivia: which in the
followings is not a language code: cat, bin, bak, iii, inc, lol, map,
oss, run, sux, tel?)
 * "If the access element is used, a full URI must be given" - I don't
think the notion of "full URI" is defined anywhere
 * the references section don't distinguish normative from informative
references;
 * there seems to be a normative reference to HTML 5 in "Rules for
Identifying the Content Type of a Start File", but HTML 5 is not in the
list of references; also, having a normative dependency on HTML5 means
the spec won't be able to go to REC until HTML5 does

I'm sorry these comments are a bit randomish, but I thought I would send
them while I looked at the spec.

Dom

1. http://dev.w3.org/2006/waf/widgets/

Received on Tuesday, 16 September 2008 09:21:31 UTC