• ODF_1.2_Document_Types

ODF 1.2 Document Types

Summary

Proposal owner:

Dennis E. Hamilton

Brief description:

The variety of document types and the types that may arise as internal and external components of documents need to be identified, their precise characteristic structures stipulated, and their conformance characteristics, individually and in aggregate, established.

MIMETYPE values are made normative for (loosely) conformant documents as part of this reconciliation of ODF Document Type concepts.

Rationale

Approach Notes

These notes are to be removed as the proposal is fleshed out:

• I don't know whether components need to be addressed here or not. If so, there are the key components that are explicitly accounted for in the specified document structures, separate from those additional components that may be of an arbitrary nature, may be additional package items or external files, etc.
• Review the current document for the ways that the explicit document types are expressed
  • By the special MIMETYPE item in a package file

  • By the <office:document> office:mimetype attribute

  • By the MIME TYPE specified for a package item
  • By the tacit naming and placement of an item in an ODF package
  • By the root element of an item or free-standing file that is an XML document
• Distinguishing between XML documents and ODF documents and their parts needs to be dealt with. This might apply mostly in the treatment of packaging. It is also important in the use of a consistent nomenclature that is used in a rigid way throughout the specification documents.
• Review the metadata proposal to see whether that impacts the recognition and relationship of components.

• -- orcmid 2008-12-09 23:11:38

• THere is a connection between the gross expression of types and the required structure of

  • an <office:office-body> element under an <office:document> XML-document root

  • an <office:office-body> element under an <office:document-content> content.xml package subdocument's XML-document root

  • When <office:document> XML documents are accessed as external components and are used as internal components, the conditions that might apply are not so clear.

  • These and other combinations that may be influenced by document type need to be addressed in the specification.

  • Note that there is also an impact with regard to version significance on these various parts and on every occurence of a document-root element. See the ODF_1.2_Version_Significance proposal.

  • -- orcmid 2008-12-09 23:41:02

  • Oh, and there is also cross-over with document structure conditions. See the ODF_1.2_Document_Structure proposal -- orcmid 2008-12-09 23:45:44

• The MIMETYPE MIME type values defined in the non-normative IANA-referencing Appendix of ODF 1.0/1.1 are made normative for determination of the types of conformant documents and as the value of the office:mimetype attribute for announcing the structure of an <office:document> element in all of the ways one may occur. This is needed to reconcile the document processing and the conformance requirements in ODF 1.2 Part 1 and also needs to be reconciled with Part 3 for ODF 1.2 -- orcmid 2008-12-09 23:59:17.

Use cases:

TBD

Alternatives considered:

TBD  

Requested changes to the ODF Standard

Text changes/additions (please state section numbers):

TBD

Schema changes/additions:

TBD

Impacts

Conformance:

This proposal is intended to identify a specified set of document types and their relationships so that the conformance conditions on ODF documents and their processors can be precisely expressed.  The explicit specification of document types and their component conditions is intended to have a basis for agreement among adopters of ODF and providers of ODF processors.

Backwards compatibility:

Enactment of this proposal is intended to capture the tacit reliance on document types that is latent in previous ODF specifications.  It is expected that current processors already operate in a manner that is compatible with this specification for ODF document types.  There may be differences with respect to the sharpened definition of conformance for ODF 1.2; there should be no impact on current implementations provided that ODF 1.2 documents are otherwise acceptable to the implementation.

Accessibility impact:

This proposal has no accessibility impact.  The detection of and conformance to document types are a requirement on processors that does not depend on user interaction.  Users may have means to specify particular types of ODF document to be created or accessed, but those provisions and their accessibility are completely separate from the representation of document types in the ODF documents and within ODF processors.

Workflow (to be filled in by TC Chairs)

Category: CategoryNewProposal

Date Proposal initially made:

Dates Proposal discussed on TC calls:

Date vote is requested:

Date vote is held:

Results of vote:

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