[uf-new] OpenShapes - a tentative proposal for a Microformat for diagrams

[Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis]

Alan Slater wrote:

> An example of a diagram in a potential XHTML-based microformat could 
> look like:
> 
> <div class="os-diagram">
> <div id="shape-0" class="shape rectangle">
>    <span class="label">XSL-FO File</span>
> </div>
> <div id="shape-1" class="shape circle">
>    <span class="label">Processor</span>
> </div>
> <div id="shape-2" class="shape rectangle">
>    <span class="label">PostScript File</span>
> </div>
> <div id="connector-1" class="connector single-arrow">
>    <a href="#shape-0" rel="from"/>
>    <a href="#shape-1" rel="to"/>
> </div>
> <div id="connector-2" class="connector single-arrow">
>    <a href="#shape-1" rel="from"/>
>    <a href="#shape-2" rel="to"/>
> </div>
> </div>
> 
> Note that this microformat can only partially define the appearance of 
> diagrams - additional presentational information has to be provided 
> seperately in definitions that describe how each shape is to be drawn.
> 
> A more detailed outline of this proposal can be found at:
> 
> http://www.high-beyond.com/downloads/OpenShapesProposal.pdf  
> <http://www.high-beyond.com/downloads/OpenShapesProposal.pdf>

I'm confused. Why are you trying to do this in XHTML at all, especially 
when "the primary means for displaying Open
Shapes content will be graphical and that this will not be directly 
supported by browsers" and you intend to render the diagrams using other 
technologies like Silverlight? Your paper gives three reasons:

1. "The ability to embed diagrams into XHTML pages and retain validity
without employing new namespaces etc." What's wrong with OBJECT and IMG? 
If you want to inline diagram markup inside the same document, you can 
retain XML validity by mixing XHTML with other XML languages such as 
SVG. Why is avoiding namespaces such a crucial goal?

2. "Relative friendliness for search engine crawlers". Not as friendly 
as a HTML long description of the same diagram, though.

3. "The ability to render something if the content cannot be displayed
graphically. Particularly important for accessibility – this should
always be a major concern." Well, yes, but can you elaborate on how such 
markup like your example is going to be meaningful to users of existing 
user agents and assistive technologies, seeing as your links have no 
link text and AFAIK no current consuming agent will do anything special 
with rel="from" and rel="to"?

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis