Re: [office-comment] embedding images in ODF

[Bob Jolliffe <bobjolliffe@gmail.com>]

Hi Bart

I agree with the direction of this discussion in general regarding the
desirability of using the media-type attribute, but I am wary (read
not too happy) with the unregistered "commonly used" media types
referred to in your second option below.  I think we would need some
more concrete shared understanding than this.  There are so many after
all - who is to say which is commonly used and which is not?
Proliferating implementation specific media types on the basis of some
implementor's note doesn't greatly improve the situation which has
already been described.

Regarding the various xml streams in the package, I agree that the
standard could, and perhaps should, specify a media type definition
for each.

I guess its got to be about the manifest adding real (rather than
apparent) value.  I agree that without any media type attributes the
file doesn't carry much information that a consumer couldn't
reasonably and simply figure out for itself.  So I'd go for making the
media type mandatory, with:

1.  an odf specific (and defined in the standard) media type if applicable;
2.  or an IANA registered type if available; or
3.  resort to the application/octet-stream etc. for the rest.  If
these are "unregistered" then the extension would be the best hint on
offer.

Cheers
Bob

2009/6/22 Hanssens Bart <Bart.Hanssens@fedict.be>:
> +1 on making media-type a required attribute
>
> But Mingfei is right regarding wmf not being a IANA registered media type...
> So the ODF spec could say something like:
>
> - use the IANA registered type if it's available
> - if not, use (one of the) "unregistered" commonly used mime types (and document this in your implementer's notes ;-)
> - if that's not available, fall back to application/octet-stream etc
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Bart
> ________________________________________
> From: Wouter van Vugt [wouter@code-counsel.net]
> Sent: Monday, June 22, 2009 5:36 PM
> To: Wouter van Vugt; Ming Fei Jia
> Cc: office-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: RE: [office-comment] embedding images in ODF
>
> e.g. for really totally unknown pieces of content (do these even exist?), you can fall back on some form of application/octet-stream, or application/xml for xml files. That way at least people are helped, and not hindered.
>
> ________________________________
> Van: Wouter van Vugt [mailto:wouter@code-counsel.net]
> Verzonden: ma 22-6-2009 17:35
> Aan: Ming Fei Jia
> CC: office-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
> Onderwerp: RE: [office-comment] embedding images in ODF
>
> Wouldn't making the media-type mandatory solve it all? It would also ensure that future implementations follow some sensible approach to this. Why else is there a media-type at all? Since the four default XML files all use text/xml, the media-type is quite useless at this point in time.
>
> I think we should improve this area of the spec.
> - require media-types for known files (image/wmf is known even to noobish people like me) Heck, I didn't choose to insert a WMF, Symphony did that for me. This is even more important for formats such as image/WMZ (zipped WMF).
> - use sensible media-types for the common four XML files. This allows discoverability if a file is a presentation / spreadsheet / document. Currently I need to open the content.xml and start parsing that. Something like application/odf_document+xml or whatever.
>
> In the end, I feel that media-type should be mandatory, not optional. It is useless that way.
>
> I agree on the filename. Not mandatory. I think the spec could say that it is prefered to keep the filename intact. Most people will probably not care though.
>
>
>
> Wouter
>
> ________________________________
> Van: Ming Fei Jia [mailto:jiamingf@cn.ibm.com]
> Verzonden: ma 22-6-2009 17:18
> Aan: Wouter van Vugt
> CC: office-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
> Onderwerp: Re: [office-comment] embedding images in ODF
>
>
> Wouter,
>
> Seems the question you asked are implementation specific. For Symphony, you had better raise you issue in Symphony support forum. For OpenOffice, you had better raise you issue in OpenOffice issuezilla.
>
> I tried for both Symphony 1.3 and OpenOffice3.1. They have the same result like you said for the 2 items. So these depend on OpenOffice code base implementation. For the first, the file name is GUID like structure, that may be a problem for someone, but may be not a problem for someone else. Also, ODF spec does not define how the picture file name should be like. For the second, does not specify the media type for wmf file, this also an implementation specific issue. In the wikimedia(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_media_type), does not list wmf as common media type. If we think wmf is a common use media type, that needs implementation improvement, not the standard issue. Anyway, thanks report the issues.
>
> "Wouter van Vugt" <wouter@code-counsel.net> wrote on 06/19/2009 02:52:53 PM:
>> 06/19/2009 02:53 PM
>>
>> Subject:
>>
>> [office-comment] embedding images in ODF
>>
>> When adding an image into an ODF document using Lotus Symphony I
>> noticed that the manifest contains the following information:
>>
>> <manifest:file-entry manifest:media-type="" manifest:full-
>> path="Pictures/2000006A00000E3F0000107325797BF2.wmf"/>
>>  <manifest:file-entry manifest:media-type="" manifest:full-
>> path="Pictures/2000067F0000136800001363D5B042F0.wmf"/>
>>
>> Two things can be noticed here. First the file name was mangled into
>> a GUID like structure, while that is technically unnecessary. Next,
>> and even more amazing, is that the media-type is left unspecified.
>> The only way I can now recognize this image as a WMF, is to use the
>> file extension. This poses unnecessary difficulties for processing
>> applications. Given my guess that Symphony generates conformant ODF,
>> the spec should be adapter to require the media-type attribute when
>> a decent value can be chosen.
>>
>> Proposed changes:
>> -          Demand that file names are not mangled when embedding
>> into a package.
>> -          Demand that media-types be specified whenever possible
>> (WMF is surely possible)
>
>
>
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