[Clipart] Re: [Inkscape-devel] metadata: general vs. specific in SVG

[Alan Horkan]

On Fri, 22 Sep 2006, Andy Fitzsimon wrote:

> Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2006 11:43:20 +0800
> From: Andy Fitzsimon <andyfitz at gmail.com>
> To: Jon Phillips <jon at rejon.org>
> Cc: Inkscape Development Mailing List
>     <inkscape-devel at lists.sourceforge.net>,
>      Open Clip Art Library list <clipart at lists.freedesktop.org>
> Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] metadata: general vs. specific in SVG
>
> rock and roll  jon..    looks like you're on the right track.
>
> will come back to this soon once im near good internet after kreming.
> cant wait to catch up online
>
> On 8/26/06, Jon Phillips <jon at rejon.org> wrote:

> > So, one of the things I've wanted to work on is more specific metadata
> > usage per-object which we could hav UI for in Inkscape and for use in
> > Open Clip Art Library.

> > Thus, what I think would be a good approach is to generalize Kees'
> > document metadata dialog into a panel which can be re-used and then
> > either we add an object metadata dialog (using Jon's panel work), or
> > just attach this functionality to the object properties dialog.

I would be much more comfortable with a seperate "Document
Properites"/Metadata dialog and another dialog for Object properties
metadata.

The document metadata descibes things like Title, Author, Subject, etc.
Object properties are more likely to be different, a collection of name &
value pairs roughly resembling the following:
<metadata name="vehicle" value="truck" />
<metadata name="animal" value="duck" />
<metadata name="tag" value="mountain" />

Where users would be able to define their own endless list of name value
pairs or tags to put on an object.

Document properites are more likely to be along the lines of Dublin Core.
Sure you might also want to include a Custom/Advanced tab on the Document
Propties dialog allowing you to add your own additional tags but
generalising the Document properties dialog would make it less useful.
By all means try to find a way to share common elements and interaction
models but try to keep the two different tasks seperate.

Look at Visio if you can.  What I am describing should roughly resemble
what Microsoft Office does.  It is pretty close to how OpenOffice does
things too (see File, Properties, User Defined.  Also see Modify, Name
Object).

> > Kees what do you think? Others, what do you think?

So definately yes to per object metadata but please make sure you have a
good idea of other approaches before you try to come up with a whole new
one.

Since you mentioned Pippin, a gimp developer you may want to try and think
of a design which could be reused verbatim for their document properties
and layer properties, which in this case should be analagous to the
inkscape document properties and object (or group)  properties.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

Inkscape http://inkscape.org
Abiword http://www.abisource.com
Open Clip Art http://OpenClipArt.org

Alan's Diary http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/