RE: [cgmo-webcgm] Changes to XCF chapters

[Lofton Henderson <lofton@rockynet.com>]

At 12:22 PM 1/18/2005 -0800, Cruikshank, David W wrote:
>So I'm confused....Chapter 3 is where the full discription of the APS 
>types and APS attributes used to be in WebCGM 1.0.  Is this all 
>changing?  I don't want to repeat what's already in another chapter...

Good point.  Benoit and I already had to face it with Ch.6, and our 
proposal there might well apply here.

In fact, a lot of the same items need to appear in some form in Ch.3 and 
Ch.5.  (And there will be some things in Ch.5 that won't be in Ch.3, like 
bindById.  Ch.3 describes APS and ApsAttr content of WebCGM instances -- 
full syntax description, how to format regions, etc.  Full semantics.  Ch.5 
is about the XML companion file, and how to bind APS/ApsAttr information 
from companion file to the parallel structures in a WebCGM instance.

So the items (APS and ApsAttrs) need to be mentioned in both places.  The 
goal is to avoid or minimize information redundancy.  Benoit and I kicked 
this about a little in the context of Ch.6 and Ch.3.  Here is our earlier 
(December) dialog, which I think is applicable to Ch.5/Ch.3 as well:

>[...APS and ApsAttrs...] should be in the section(s) in which they 
>currently reside. That means conceptual discussion in Chapter 2 and 
>normative description in Chapter 3. WebCGM 2.0 proposed TOC is:
>* 1. Introduction to WebCGM
>* 2. WebCGM Concepts
>* 3. WebCGM Intelligent Content
>* 4. WebCGM Profile
>* 5. WebCGM XML Companion File
>* 6. WebCGM Document Object Model (DOM)
>* 7. WebCGM DOM ECMAScript binding
>Basic principle: There shouldn't be overlapping or duplicative *normative* 
>material in Chapter 6, do you agree? If yes, then what do we do with the 
>ApsAttr descriptions in Chapter 6? And what does that mean about the 
>decision to adopt the new descriptive style (like SVG's)? Well, chapter 3 
>of WebCGM 2.0 could be rewritten in that style, i.e., we could rewrite the 
>1.0 ApsAttrs in the new style.
>Proposal: I just looked again at the DOM chapter. Most of what you have 
>there is DOM specific, and mostly doesn't duplicate the Chapter 2/3 
>information. Except possibly, "Applies to:". So I think you can continue 
>with most of your stuff (all of it for now). Eventually we would create 
>back links from Ch.6 to the detailed description in Ch.3. (Ch.3 contains 
>detailed syntax, e.g., of 'region'. Contains Description, contains Viewer 
>Behavior, etc.)

So our idea is to keep in Ch.3 all of that normative information about APS 
and ApsAttr in WebCGM instances, but to improve its presentation style, 
similar to the presentation in his the draft Ch.6.  In Ch.6, all of the 
same items will appear as in Ch.3.  We will (eventually) back link them to 
Ch.3, and will trim down the Ch.6 information content so that it is DOM 
specific.  (I will do this later, as the document integrator and final editor.)

I would envision the same for Ch.5 and Ch.3.

Comments?

Btw, per Benoit's concern about the document process, and my reply ... It 
is probably best that I do the integration of his plain text into current 
Ch.5, to mitigate risks from our process.

-Lofton.