[XML-SIG] Metadata in XBEL

Ross Burton r.burton@180sw.com
Wed, 28 Mar 2001 22:41:42 +0100


>  > None specifically. I was suggesting that any missing features that
>  > came up during in the Galeon project should be worth consideration.
>
>   Sounds good.  Ross, David: please speak up if you have any
> additional considerations for us!

The only features which XBEL was missing for Galeon which required metadata
are:

1) icon for bookmark
2) toolbar for folder
3) notes on bookmark
4) nick-name (shortcut name for typing into location box)
5) add to context menu

Of these 1 and 2 are already in XBEL 1.1.  The question is are 3-5 general
enough to be in the spec?

I think that 3 and 4 possibly are.

Several browsers allow free-form notes to be attached to sites, although
that does overlap somewhat with the metadata tags.  Maybe standard owners
for metadata elements can be defined for optional metadata, so that an owner
of  "python.org/xbel/notes" (say) could be used for notes on a item. This
way the data is confimed to the <info> node where it belongs, but it still
identified.

Also, some browsers allow short names to be assigned to sites, so that
typing in the short name is sufficient to navigate to the URL.  Of course
nick names are similar to the ID attribute, in that they are both short
names. However, I can see systems where the ID is generated by the system
itself, not the user.

I'm not so convinced about 5 (it adds the selected folder/bookmark to the
default context menu, so it is always available).  Personally I'm not so
convinced of it's usefulness, so it should not be in XBEL 1.1.

In summary, I'd like to see 4 in the spec, and possibly 3.  Comments anyone?

Regards,
Ross Burton