[uf-new] Suggestion for collections (audio, video, images)

[Manu Sporny]

Alexandre Van de Sande wrote:
> On 4/14/07, Chris Griego <cgriego at gmail.com> wrote:
>> The only existing case of this I'm aware of is "hFeed" containing
>> "hEntry" items to form hAtom.

That's not quite what I was asking - I probably didn't make myself very
clear. I was asking if we could imply a "collection" by having one
microformat embedded inside another. So if hFeed had other hFeeds inside
it - could we assume that it is a collection of hFeeds?

The concept seems to work well for audio (pardon the markup, I'm doing
it for clarity):

haudio
   title = Song Name
   collaborator = Artist Name

haudio by itself is a song or a track.

haudio
   title = Album Name
   collaborator = Artist Name
      haudio
         title = Track 1
      haudio
         title = Track 2
      haudio
         title = Track 3

haudio that has other haudios in it is a collection (aka: an album). If
we decided to do this, we would probably need a 'collection' class
designator. If we had such a designator, it should probably be used
across all Microformats as a design-pattern. We could use a classname like:

<div class="haudio collection">

or

<div class="haudio">
   <span class="collection">

Audio albums, DVDs, and photo albums could have the "collection"
specifier, songs, video episodes, and images wouldn't.

> Take in consideration also the many formats that contains hCard in the
> form of "author". I guess manu's suggestion already a natural
> prolongation of the microformats

Alexandre is correct. There are a number of Microformats that embed
other Microformats inside of them. My question was a question of
recursive embedding and implicit meaning. There is more to the suggestion.

If we were to allow hAudio inside of hAudio to form a collection. We
could also embed hAudio inside of hVideo to come up with more expressive
forms like the following. (Using Kill Bill Volume 1 as an example):

hvideo (collection)
  hvideo.title = Kill Bill Volume 1
  hvideo.collaborator = Quentin Tarantino (role=writer) [hCard]
  hvideo.collaborator = Uma Thurman (role=writer,role=actress) [hCard]
  hvideo.collaborator = Lawrence Bender	(role=producer) [hCard]
  ...
  haudio
     haudio.title = I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield
     haudio.collaborator = The 5.6.7.8's (role=band) [hCard]
  haudio
     haudio.title = I'm Blue
     haudio.collaborator = The 5.6.7.8's (role=band) [hCard]
  haudio
     haudio.title = Woo Hoo
     haudio.collaborator = The 5.6.7.8's (role=band) [hCard]
  ...
  himage
     himage.title = Kill Bill Volume 1 DVD Cover Image (UK Release)

Does this make sense? Do we want to apply the "collection" design
pattern to other Microformats:

* hGeo (for waypoints)
* hCard (for an address book)
* hReview (for a collection of reviews about a particular movie)
* hAudio (for audio albums)
* hVideo (for episodic content)
* hImage (for photo albums)

The other option would be to use XOXO - but that implies a specific
order. I suggest we use XOXO for any sort of ordered content (like for
an audio playlist), and not using XOXO for anything that is not ordered.

So, the proposal is:

* Specify a collection design pattern (use it for audio/video/images).
* Allow embedding audio, video and image Microformats.
* Use XOXO for specifying ordered collections.

Arguments for or against would be very helpful in determining if we are
on the correct path. Please shoot the idea down if it doesn't make sense!

-- manu