Re: conversation history

Graham Booker <[email protected]> Sat, 3 Apr 2004 09:19:27 -0600
Newsgroups	gmane.network.fire.devel,gmane.network.fire.general
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
OK, as per some suggestions, I have changed the format yet again (here 
is the same conversation, I think, I can't remember what it was 
exactly).  I am cc'ing this to fire-talk so that we get some more 
audience reading this:

If you have a thought on this, speak up now!
Reply to the list (fire-talk), not to me.

<for those not on fire-dev>
We have had requests lately to change the logging format into a more 
XML based format.  At the same time, I had started work on some things 
that would require a slightly more advanced logging format, and XML 
will fit nicely.  Another concurrent request was to clean up the "html" 
(it is actually AIM's bastardized html) in the current logging format 
so that it renders better in a web browser.

The result, I have been working on a format that is an XML document and 
uses HTML 4 for the messages.  I hope to have this fully XHTML 1.1 
compatible if I (or anyone else out there) can figure out W3C's nearly 
worthless documentation.  Anyway, joining in the middle of the 
conversation here:
</for those not on fire-dev>

Things to notice:  I have removed the "<sep>: </sep>" after sender and 
the br tags between messages.  If you look at the second line, you will 
see that I added a reference to a CSS file.  This CSS colors the 
senders, kills the tags we don't want (nickname and other tags that may 
be in event), and separates the messages.  This CSS is very simple, and 
gets the job done.  How does this look to everyone?

The last step will be to define a DTD so that the extra tags are in an 
XHTML 1.1 module.  Does ANYONE OUT THERE know how to do this?  The W3C 
documentation may completely describe it programatically, but is nearly 
worthless in telling you how to actually do something with it!!!!

Now this shows most of the tags and the way they work with the 
exception of some standard HTML 4 tags (<br>, <b>, <i>, <u>, <a 
href=...>, and <img src....>).

The file will be a .xhtml (You will likely have to change the default 
app for this extension.  On my computer, Internet Exploder opened it).  
The only big issue with this change is that this will not render 
properly in older/less capable web browsers (notably lynx).  So the 
real question is would the option of having fire log in text, html, or 
xml satisfy everyone?

Lastly, if it is possible to get the new tags in an XHTML 1.1 module, I 
will likely add "<html 
xmlns...><head><title>sometitle</title></head><body>" before the log 
tag and "</body></html>" at the end in order to make it real XHTML.  
Even though this may not be fully compatible XHTML, it is compatible 
XML, and a web browser renders this properly (Safari was my test 
subject.  IE can't seem to do anything with it, but Navigator, Mozilla 
and OmniWeb seem to have no trouble with it).

(real things is three lines, the two xml lines, and then the log.  
There are no returns in the log, and it has no unnecessary white space. 
  Formatted here to be easier to read.)
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?xml-stylesheet 
href="http://fire.sourceforge.net/logs/simple_display.css" 
type="text/css"?>
<log began="2004-04-02 22:01:57 -0600">
   <event name="memberJoined" id="0" occurred="2004-04-02 22:02:02 
-0600">
     <nickname>meetoo</nickname>
     <sender>irc</sender>
     <message service="yes">
       <span style="color: #555555; background-color: #ffffff; font: 
10pt Times">meetoo has joined thischat</span>
     </message>
   </event>
   <envelope id="1">
     <sender>meetoo</sender>
     <message received="2004-04-02 22:02:18 -0600">
       <span style="font: 10pt Times">Hey</span>
     </message>
   </envelope>
   <envelope id="2">
     <sender self="yes">Me</sender>
     <message received="2004-04-02 22:02:21 -0600">
       <span style="color: #0000d5; font: 10pt Times">Yo</span>
     </message>
     <message received="2004-04-02 22:02:24 -0600">
       <span style="color: #0000d5; font: 10pt Times">How is it 
going?</span>
     </message>
   </envelope>
</log>


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Graham Booker                   Texas A&M University
[email protected]    Graduate Student in ELEN
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