concept representation/displaying language?

[Francois Ochsenbein]

Hi Carlos,

Your message is not messy at all -- I think I understand more or
less your wish -- and effectively the solution (C) looks as most
appropriate. 

Just a suggestion in your example: instead of 
     <PARAM name="concepts" value="http:/:...">
the <LINK> seems to be more appropriate, like
     <LINK content-role="doc" href="http://...">
     (the 'doc' value of the content-role would better 
     be replaced by 'concepts' or 'context', it would 
     require a slight modification of the schema)

There is however a difficulty if the suggestion is to have
<LABEL> as a child of <DESCRIPTION>, since an element may 
*either* contain text *or* sub-elements -- a mixing of
text and elements (like an HTML text) cannot work easily.

But an alternative, which I find more attractive, would be
to allow several descriptions and several labels, something
like:

<DESCRIPTION context='latex'> Derived from $\nabla.\vec{E}=0$ </DESCRIPTION>
<DESCRIPTION> Derived from Maxwell equation <DESCRIPTION>
<LABEL context='latex'>$E_\perp$</LABEL>
<LABEL context='html'><![CDATA[E<sub>&#x22a5;</sub>]]></LABEL>

[notice the CDATA is required due to the mixing of text and elements]

I'm not sure everybody would agree, but it should not be impossible...

--Francois

>
>Hi Francois
>
>I think that your suggestions are really creative and all of them are
>quite useful (also the idea by Mark is)
>
>(at the end of this long and messy mail I give an example of the way I'm
>doing it now so please, if you are interested try to reach the end of the
>mail ;)
>
>I find some difficulties associated to each of them, though.
>
>> A) either the name (name="\frac{\alpha}{\gamma}^2" is quite
>>   possible);
>
>> B) or embed in the <DESCRIPTION>, (e.g.
>>   <DESCRIPTION>[latex_label=$\frac{\alpha}{\gamma}^2$]
>>      Commputed value of...
>>   </DESCRIPTION>
>
>Having such an expression as a PARAM name sounds weird (I guess that some
>applications can be using the param names to store values or things like
>that). Having it in the description is, like you say, a convention. It
>means that people shold be aware of it and not showing the latex_label
>together with the description.
>
>> C) or VOTable has to define another element or attribute to
>>   convey this info; if such details would have to be added,
>>   I would prefer to define of a new element like <TITLE>
>>   or <LABEL> or <CAPTION> which could exist in addition to
>>   (or as a complement to) <DESCRIPTION>, something which
>>   could look like
>>      <LABEL context="latex">\frac{\alpha}{\gamma}^2</LABEL>
>
>This third option (offering a better structured way to do it) would imply
>adding something new to the VOTable specification (which people will be
>reluctact to, although I think that, with time, some other additions will
>be done)
>
>The problem about all of this is that, the same way that I would like to
>have this option for the param or field name I would also like to have it
>for the description (sometimes it is even more important because it is in
>the description where it is most likely to have, for instance,
>mathematical formulae).
>
>In that case:
>
>solution (A) doesn't work.
>
>Solution (B) would imply adding a convention to include a funny structure
>inside the <description> element so that you can give the formatting both
>for the param label and its description (It would fit my intentions and
>even other posibilities, but I don't know if it is a solution, it looks
>more like a patch; at least unless we ended up a new "description element
>content language" or something like that).
>
>Option (C) would be perfect if the <LABEL> element could be a child both
>of a <PARAM> and <DESCRIPTION> or being able to have different labels for
>the same param... It seems a big change in votable (although useful).
>
>(and, in any case, this means adding information to the votable, making it
>heavier to download and maybe not useful at all for some users/clients
>that will download more information without needing it)
>
>I think that the nicest way for something like this would be
>to do something similar to what is done for ontologies, vocabularies,
>namespaces and so. I'm not an expert on those things, so please correct me
>where I'm wrong.
>
>I would have some xfd (Xml Formatting Definition or whatever, I've just
>invented the term) document following a TBD specification. In that
>document I would have:
>
><concept name=teff>
>   <label context=latex>T\_{eff}</label>
>   <desc context=latex>....</desc>
>   <label context=html>T<sub>eff</sub></label>
>...
></concept>
>
>or something similar (I just want to suggest the main idea)
>
>And, in the votable tag I would add the address of this document in the
>usual fashion, somethinkg like <votable xfd:http:...> (or even a INFO
>element could be given in the votable telling the address of this
>document?)
>
>In that way, somebody can download the simple votable and, if he is
>interested in displaying, he can download the xfd document and do the
>matching. I don't know if the matching should be done by the parameter
>name or by some utype or whatever (how is it done in SKOS vocabularies and
>those things? I actually think that this thing that I'm asking for could
>be an addition to vocabularies: not only giving "definitions" and
>relations, but only suggesting the correct displaying in several contexts)
>
>I can show the "solution" that I'm using right now for one case that I'm
>interested in (I dont find it to be the more elegant posibility, is just
>an easy way to do it).
>
>Take this VOTable:
>http://svo.laeff.inta.es/theory/astrosism/s3p.php
>(it contains the metadata for some astrosismology model)
>
>it includes this:
><PARAM name="concepts"
>value="http://svo.laeff.inta.es/theory/astrosism/concepts.php"/>
>
>Given that my applications are the only ones accesing the service (by now)
>I know that this parameter means that in that document (the one pointed
>by the url) I can find information on how to display each concept).
>
>You can download that document (another votable) and use the information
>in it.
>
>I just would like to do such a thing in a more elegant way (or a more
>standard way) if possible.
>
>Sorry for the long and messy mail (I hope it is readable)
>
>Carlos
>
>  > I don't think the 'xtype' (or 'xdatatype', to be finalized)
>> is meant for this kind of info -- I would rather suggest
>> the following possibilities:
>>
>> A) either the name (name="\frac{\alpha}{\gamma}^2" is quite
>>   possible);
>>
>> B) or embed in the <DESCRIPTION>, (e.g.
>>   <DESCRIPTION>[latex_label=$\frac{\alpha}{\gamma}^2$]
>>      Commputed value of...
>>   </DESCRIPTION>
>>
>> C) or VOTable has to define another element or attribute to
>>   convey this info; if such details would have to be added,
>>   I would prefer to define of a new element like <TITLE>
>>   or <LABEL> or <CAPTION> which could exist in addition to
>>   (or as a complement to) <DESCRIPTION>, something which
>>   could look like
>>      <LABEL context="latex">\frac{\alpha}{\gamma}^2</LABEL>
>>
>> Pros and cons:
>> A) is readily available, but may be in conflict with VOTable
>>   usage in some contexts (e.g. results of cone search)
>> B) is also readily available; but it is just a convention
>>   which can't be enforced, and requires some extra parsing
>>   from applications to extract this information
>> C) requires a modification of the VOTable schema -- it could
>>   be done if a strong requirement is expressed in the
>>   immediate future...
>>
>> Any other comment / suggestion ?
>>
>> Cheers, francois
>>

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Francois Ochsenbein    ------   Observatoire Astronomique de Strasbourg
   11, rue de l'Universite 67000 STRASBOURG  Phone: +33-(0)390 24 24 29
Email: francois at astro.u-strasbg.fr (France)    Fax: +33-(0)390 24 24 17
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