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[Oliver-Rainer Wittmann <orwitt@de.ibm.com>]

Hi, sorry for stepping in soo late and also sorry for top-posting. I am at the beginning of getting deep into the current change tracking stuff. Thus, please correct and help me, if I am wrong, because of lack of deep insight. From my point of view a type-dependent counting does not makes sense. Reason - look at the following sample: - Ending markup: <text:p> <text:table> <text:section> <text:p> - Starting markup <text:p> <text:table> <text:p> <text:section> <text:p> - Undo <add type="paragraph" /2 ...> Having the Ending markup and the Undo I do not know where the <text:p> element needs to be inserted (before <text:table>, after <text:table> and before <text:section> or after <text:section> to undo the tracked change. Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Best regards Oliver-Rainer Wittmann -- Advisory Software Engineer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IBM Deutschland Beim Strohhause 17 20097 Hamburg Phone: +49-40-6389-1415 E-Mail: orwitt@de.ibm.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IBM Deutschland Research & Development GmbH / Vorsitzende des Aufsichtsrats: Martina Koederitz Geschäftsführung: Dirk Wittkopp Sitz der Gesellschaft: Böblingen / Registergericht: Amtsgericht Stuttgart, HRB 243294 From: Svante Schubert <svante.schubert@gmail.com> To: office-collab@lists.oasis-open.org Date: 13.09.2012 17:52 Subject: Re: [office-collab] How do we count? - September 26, 2012 Sent by: <office-collab@lists.oasis-open.org> Hi Patrick, On 12.09.2012 22:47, Patrick Durusau wrote: Svante, From below: How does omitting the type make counting easier? We have less to implement. How does typing help us? If we omit the type, then we have to all count the same components from the root. What if my application only counts text:p and not text:h? If I can count text:p[24] I can at least apply changes that point to that component. I got a solution for clients with different feature set, but I fear it might take us too far at this stage. May I instead ask where typing help us in change-tracking scenarios, which could not be fulfilled without typing? There is this quote of Antoine de Saint-Exupery: "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." Ah, but your counting presumes a defined (as yet undefined) counting system that results in every application getting the same count. Yes Which means they all have to count the *same* components. Yes Sounds like a common data model to me. Yes, ODF is the common data model and the components is just an abstraction from the XML, grouping one ore more XML elements to a logical unit we call component What I am suggesting is that if we count types, then if my application only counts text:p, it can find all changes to the components for which it offers change tracking. Not every application will offer the same level of change tracking. So counting should not depend on a universal component counting system. (Unless you think all application should be required to have a common component counting, whether they offer change tracking for all defined components or not.) Hmmm, what is more, if I only count text:p components, I can append my changes to the CT file, to be picked up by an application that offers broader change tracking capabilities. Yes? You might perhaps solve it with types, but it works IMHO even without types. May I draw the answer-this-complex-question-later card? ;) Hope you are having a great evening! Patrick Best regards, Svante On 09/12/2012 03:06 PM, Svante Schubert wrote: Hi Patrick, On 12.09.2012 20:11, Patrick Durusau wrote: Svante, On 09/12/2012 01:24 PM, Svante Schubert wrote: Hi Patrick, A meta "issue" deserves a meta answer. We would count as our scenarios demand us to do I personally would count as simple as possible. Yes, but here is where the confusion begins. There is no specified point for starting the count in your example other than the first element that appears being <text:h>. That is an impossible starting point for an ODF document instance (single XML file or package). The content of an ODF document is in the content.xml and starts beyond the office:body child, e.g. for text documents all children of /office:document-content/office:body/office:text/ are potential component candidates. In our ODF schema there are even defined names as "office-text-content-prelude" and "office-text-content-epilogue" The children of the root of a text document are defined among <define name="text-content"> Yes, the numbers may change after each operation. But immediately prior to each operation, there is a numbering of the components which all applications loading that document and proceeding to the point prior to any specified change, agree is the numbering of the components. Each operation results in the next "state" of the document. That numbers increase/decrease is unremarkable. See below for more questions/comments: <snip> To ease counting and adapting of parameter, I suggest not to count type dependent (e.g. text:p [24]) and in addition as most components are being used cross document wide (e.g. html, docbook, ooxml), I would personally would prefer to use the more verbose human readable form, i.e. paragraph instead of text:p. How does omitting the type make counting easier? We have less to implement. How does typing help us? If we omit the type, then we have to all count the same components from the root. What if my application only counts text:p and not text:h? If I can count text:p[24] I can at least apply changes that point to that component. I got a solution for clients with different feature set, but I fear it might take us too far at this stage. May I instead ask where typing help us in change-tracking scenarios, which could not be fulfilled without typing? There is this quote of Antoine de Saint-Exupery: "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." I don't see the relevance of human readable format for change tracking. If you want to display paragraph rather than text:p, be my guest. ;-) But in the end the component name is only a working title. In the as XML serialized form of operations, the component name could again be abbreviated, e.g. back to the local name of the ODF XML root element, when being used. Don't misuse the concept of "root element." It is well defined in XML and <text:p> in ODF is not a root element. There is no misuse, there are just two kind of roots. One document root element and a component root element. By default, I will talk about component root elements. I suppose an additional meta question is going to be deciding on a vocabulary to discuss change tracking. ;-) ;) Hope you are having a great day! Patrick Best regards, Svante On 12.09.2012 15:54, Patrick Durusau wrote: Greetings! Sorry to be bringing up another "meta" issue so soon but it occurs to me that we need to decide not only *what* we are going to count (Svante's components) but *how* we intend to count them. In such a way that allows for implementations to have whatever internal representations, from tables and DOM trees to more sophisticated structures. That is to say I view the component identification <-> implementation model as follows: ODF defines interchangeable component identification -> mappingTo (defined by implementations) -> Implementation Model Implementers define Implementation Model(s) and, mappingTo -> ODF defined interchangeable component identification Having said that, and speaking only of elements, I would suggest that we follow the already defined elements with their namespaces, followed by the "count" of that element in the document as the designation for an element. thus (ignoring path): text:p[24] would be the 24th text:p element in a document. I thought about simply counting everything and relying solely on address/count but that would limit the internal models you could use. with text:p[24] you can use whatever internal structure you like, so long as it can find and report text:p[24]. *** Having said that, I think counts should start with 1 and accept up to 32-bit integers (I don't want to have to revisit this anytime soon.) Oh, and counts need to start at the root of each XML file, such that we can lose all the files in a package except CT and content.xml (or even part of it) and still be able to apply all of the change tracking that retains targets in content.xml file. *** Does the count starting at the root of each XML file imply we need some internal CT file structure other than operations and paths? That is do we track changes to styles themselves separately from application of styles? My gut says no but am interested in other opinions. Mostly saying no because if we make change tracking overly clever, the more fragile it will become. Thinking the better course is like a key/value pair: operation - path with change True, an implementation has to "know" that style:style isn't found in content.xml but that isn't a high expectation. Sorry, did not mean to cover so many issues in one post, summary: (1) Counting starts with 1 for each component and continues up to 32 bits (anything in excess of 32 bits is an error, discard, don't allow buffer overflow) (2) Components (elements) are designated by namespace:elementName[count] (3) Counting starts at the root of each file (4) CT entries are recorded in the order of application in the CT file as "operation - path with change" (operations, paths, change subject to definition by the SC) This one may take a while on a call, even with vigorous email discussion. Hope everyone is having a great day! Patrick PS: Almost forgot: What do we call the CT file? Taking the SGML route: TBCBPDAGDHJHMJRLDMFMTMARSSRWORW.xml seems a bit verbose. Suggestions for something shorter? Or do you want to use that as a working name? ;-) -- Patrick Durusau patrick@durusau.net Former Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34 Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps) Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300 Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps) Another Word For It (blog): http://tm.durusau.net Homepage: http://www.durusau.net Twitter: patrickDurusau -- Patrick Durusau patrick@durusau.net Former Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34 Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps) Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300 Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps) Another Word For It (blog): http://tm.durusau.net Homepage: http://www.durusau.net Twitter: patrickDurusau