Re: [office-metadata] Microsoft's Doug Mahugh on custom metadata

[robert_weir@us.ibm.com]

If you back up and ask, what functionality
is actually provided, it comes down to this:

1) User can enter text into a field
in their document
2) Text is mapped via XPath into an
XML document defined by a custom schema
3) Said document is stored in the Zip
file

Of course, any program out there that
needs to get to this XML document will need to have custom code added to
it to read and unzip the archive, and navigate the OPC conventions to find
the XML file of interest.

You could accomplish the same benefits
is several other ways.  In fact I'd be concerned about doing it exactly
the way MS has done it because they've been busy filing file patent applications
in this area.

Another way of doing this would be via
the XForms support in OpenOffic, where today you can create fields, map
them via XPath to a custom schema, and then submit the XML document.  The
only thing that is lacking is the ability to have the target of the submission
be the Zip archive itself (rather than a remote POST) and have this be
triggered on document save.  I think an ODF application could do both
of these within what is allowed by ODF 1.0.

In fact I wonder why Microsoft did not
use XForms for this?  It seems to be the natural fit -- binding controls
to a data model that maps into a specified XML schema.  It also expands
to allow specification of constraints, etc.  

-Rob


"Bruce D'Arcus" <bruce.darcus@OpenDocument.us>
wrote on 05/21/2007 07:54:55 AM:

> 
> On May 21, 2007, at 3:42 AM, marbux wrote:
> 
> > <http://blogs.msdn.com/dmahugh/archive/2007/05/19/custom-schemas-
> > revisited.aspx>
> 
> Just for comparison for those that might be interested, their  
> "structured document tags" are somewhat like our text:meta-field,
 
> except that we put the instructions in RDF/XML.
> 
> Also, we have the common model of course.
> 
> Bruce
>