Re: Cleveland TC meeting

[Dieter@isodraw.de (Dieter Weidenbrueck)]

Dave,

you are absolutely right in your email, this is not an easy job to do.

1.    A CGM DOM, either separate or combined with an SVG DOM in a
    "Structured Graphics DOM" is desirable and would be useful.
2.    The entry level for the definition of any DOM is very high, especially
in
    graphics. Look at the scope of the SVG DOM. CGMO does not have enough
    bandwidth with the required technical knowledge right now to handle
this.
3. The work required on the implementation side is enormous. Again, look at
    the SVG DOM. Current CGM vendors would have to re-write their viewers
    completely to handle all DOM calls. A DOM implementation requires that
    you add a lot of functionality that our users will probably never use -
you
    just have to be complete.

Here is a pragmatic thought:
-   my believe is that the current market for CGM viewers is divided between
MetaWeb,ActiveCGM, and IsoView. The individual market shares are not
important
for the following considerations.
-   Neither one of the vendors is able to or wants to go through the
nightmare of
implementing a full-fledged DOM. Think of BHO implementations, nothing
happened so far.
MetaWeb is more or less handled by Ulrich directly (which means that the
marketing
background and the future of the product is still not clear to me, and maybe
not even to Ulrich).
MGX has other problems right now than to rewrite ActiveCGM completely. We
(ITEDO) could do it
technically, however, the interest coming from our users is close to zero.
Typically users ask for
a specific function that they need, but not for a DOM implementation.
-  Based on these observations I suggest that we start defining an essential
subset of a DOM (probably by adopting some SVG calls) to standardize the
most important
functions like hotspot handling, opening of files, object navigation and
highlighting.
    All vendors have functions that provide this in one way or the other, so
it should not be so difficult to streamline the API. This would give users
an immediate
benefit without the heavy overload of a complete DOM.

If you want to go for a complete DOM I will be with you. However, chances
are low that it gets implemented or even finished.

BTW, how interesting this topic is for most of the members can be told by
the
response that your and Lofton's emails about the DOM generated - zero.

Comments?

Dieter




----- Original Message -----
From: "Cruikshank, David W" <David.Cruikshank@PSS.Boeing.com>
To: <cgmopen-members@lists.oasis-open.org>
Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 10:29 PM
Subject: Cleveland TC meeting


> CGM Open Members --
>
> It's now three weeks until our CGMO TC meeting -- the CGM DOM workshop.
> This (CGM DOM) is a complex challenge for us, and our ability to make some
> progress towards closure depends on advanced preparation. Please read
these
> reference papers, at least.  Position papers would be great, and a
strawman
> proposal would be even better -- it would guarantee that we make some
progress.
>
> We particularly need contributions and attendance from those who are savvy
> about DOM/API design and DOM programming topics.  If you haven't already
> informed me about your attendance, please do so.
>
> All three reference papers are on the Web site. You can find them linked
> (in PDF and/or HTML format) from the page:
>
> http://www.cgmopen.org/technical/readings.html
>
> The links to the three papers (in a good reading order) are:
>
> http://www.cgmopen.org/technical/dwpaper_xml99tm.html
> http://www.cgmopen.org/technical/arch-for-IG.pdf
> http://www.cgmopen.org/technical/approach_to_cgm_dom.html
>
> You can find (XML) DOM itself (several versions) linked from:
>
> http://www.w3.org/DOM/.
>
> You can find the SVG DOM in the current spec (see appendix B):
>
> http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/CR-SVG-20001102/index.html
>
> thx...Dave Cruikshank
>
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