Re: [office] text:span elements for RDFa attributes

[Svante Schubert <Svante.Schubert@Sun.COM>]

Hi Dennis,

Dennis E. Hamilton wrote:
> Svante,
>
> Surely you mean for your examples to be
>
> <text:span text:style-name="green">green</text:span>
> <text:span text:style-name="red">red</text:span>
> <text:span text:style-name="green">green</text:span>
>
> <text:span text:style-name="green">green
> <text:span text:style-name="red">red
> </text:span>green</text:span> 
>   
Yes, exactly!
> In any case, there is nothing to prevent use of a <text:span> element in
> exactly the same way they are used in HTML and XHTML as a way to provide
> embracing elements.  The RDFa specification is loaded with examples of the
> creative use of <xhtml:span> as a way to provide for creative in-line
> metadata, and the rules for finding and extracting it are also pretty clean.
>
>
> It seems to me that <text:span> is no more volatile than in RDFa (your
> inspiration, after all).
>   
It's correct, it is same problem for RDFa and RDF attachement.
It does not matter if the attribute on the element would be an xml:id or
an xml:about...
> Likewise, since hierarchy must be observed, introducing <text:meta> as a
> special <text:span> variant doesn't resolve the volatility issue.  I do
> grant that it provides a nice non-backward-compatible way of knowing where
> to look for RDFa attributes in text content.
>   
I don't think there will be a backward compatibility problem to versions
prior to ODF 1.2 as there was no RDF metadata.
The new element resolves the issue, as implementation as OpenOffice.org
realize that this element is not to be spitted.

> I am bothered by the following text in OpenDocument-v1.2-draft7-13.odt
> description for <text:meta> though:
>
>       "The <text:meta> element represents a location in a document 
>       where content can be generated from metadata and inserted in
>       a document instance."
>
> That is not exactly what we want from a span-type element.  On the other
> hand, I don't see anything that suggests how the generation of content is
> supposed to occur.  Perhaps this description is a mistake? 
>   
Indeed it seems to be a mistake, the description belongs to the
text:meta-field.

The latest draft "09-01-11-ODF-Metadata-Change-Request.odt"
supersedes the previous integrated in the spec
"OpenDocument-v1.2-draft7-13.odt".
> Now what we have is two elements that each can occur everywhere that the
> other can and the only difference is the attributes they can carry.  It is
> an interesting nuance that one can impact style and the other only presents
> metadata, but I wonder if that is worth having a non-backward-compatible
> element which will presumably result in foreign-element behavior (as opposed
> to the more-tolerable foreign-attribute behavior).  
>   
Only metadata attributes (RDFa & xml:id) are allowed on text:meta.
> I also wonder how much of RDFa applies to <text:meta> by implication.  That
> is rather interesting and I confess that I overlooked the availability of
> this element in my previous studies.  
> (It also reduces my concern about
> absence of RDF support in the <office:document> case.)
>   
> Thanks, I completely missed this.
>   
You are always welcome, Dennis.
Svante
>  - Dennis
>
> PS: I don't think the difficulty of testing documents that are equivalent
> but have different XML is unique to <text:span> and the <text:meta> can be
> used in non-unique ways too, especially thanks to the wonderful variability
> in RDF, the use of CURIEs, etc.  In fact, simple differences in use of
> namespace prefixes will make literal comparison of generated XML documents
> problematic.  
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Svante.Schubert@Sun.COM [mailto:Svante.Schubert@Sun.COM] 
> http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/office/200901/msg00113.html
> Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2009 12:40
> To: dennis.hamilton@acm.org
> Cc: 'office'
> Subject: Re: [office] Empty text:span elements
>
> Dennis,
>
> please find my answer to RDF usage on text:span below.
>
> Dennis E. Hamilton wrote:
> http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/office/200901/msg00112.html
>   
>> Thomas,
>>     
> [ ... ]
>   
>> PS: What thrills me about your note is that I am so unfamiliar with ODF
>> details that I didn't know there was a text:span element at all.  Seeing
>> that there is, I am now completely baffled why the RDF metadata proposal
>> does not allow it for decoration of text with in-line RDF annotations in
>> precisely the way that <span> is used in the RDFa extensions to XHTML.
>> <text:span> is a wonderful feature for that, even though it is not as
>> generously usable as in the HTML cases.  I had supposed that this simple,
>> direct method for in-line annotation with metadata (a.k.a semantic markup)
>> was not supported because there was no span element.  Fooled myself!
>>   
>>     
> A text:span is a quite volatile element in ODF, the following is equivalent:
>
> <text:span text:style-name="green">green</text:style-name>
> <text:span text:style-name="red">red</text:style-name>
> <text:span text:style-name="green">green</text:style-name>
>
> <text:span text:style-name="green">green
> <text:span text:style-name="red">red
> </text:style-name>green</text:style-name>
>
> With splitting&joining spans, the target of the RDF would be changing.
> In case you want to add semantic to a text:span, we added a new element
> called text:meta.
>
> The text:span behavior is as well a problem for testing, when comparing
> ODF documents [1].
>
> Regards,
> Svante
>
> [ ... ]
>
>
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