[JDEV] Rich Text in Messages

[Thomas Charron]

From: "Stephen D. Williams" <sdw at lig.net>
Subject: Re: [JDEV] Rich Text in Messages
> I strongly disagree.  Presence should include capabilities.  The
alternative
> is very inefficient since essentially every user would have to query every
> other user and this might determine if they wanted to have a conversation
in
> the first place.  Imagine that you only spoke Spanish (an alternate
problem
> and good placeholder for a desired technical ability, like 'supports GSM
> audio'), when you enter a group chat or do a directory search, you're
going to
> want to filter for other people who have a 'Spanish' capability.

  It really all depends on how you look at a Resource.  Is a Resource a
different avenue for communications?  Or is it a thing users use to
designate something they wish?

  Prime example:  Half of the people I've seen using WinJab use /WinJab as
their resource.  The *OTHER* half, use /Home, /Work, etc..  This becomes an
issue becouse it means that a given resources capabilities can change
midstream.  It's interesting food for thought, thats for sure..

> A better example would be that you are looking for someone to participate
in a
> multi-user game and need to know who else is also running that game.
> Insisting on polling for this kind of thing makes the system unusable and
> unextendable.

  You'd want to end up using the 'browsing' capabilities that have been
tossed about by Jer, etc.  At that point, you could have a 'registry' of
sorts, perhaps even the JUD, where you could browse VERY efficiently, so you
could do one query..  'Show me all users who I may be able to play with'.

  I'm not disagreeing with you on if capabilities should be included with
presence.  I happen to agree on that, simply trying to look at other methods
for doing what your examples are about.. :-P

> If the concensus is that plain text is the least common denominator,
that's
> not too bad, although it's not 'competitive' with the commercial
> heavyweights.  Even cell phones have the hardware to do bold or italics
text.
> Allowing it to be a capability allows both viewpoints.

    But by standardizing on XHTML, it makes it actually very simple to have
XSL processors take the XHTML, and reformat it for, say, cell phones, etc.