GNOME needs 'Datatypes lib' (Was: About metadata)

[David Jeske <jeske home chat net>]

This is yet another topic branch. 

On Wed, Aug 19, 1998 at 12:50:25PM -0400, Christopher Curtis wrote:
> On Wed, 19 Aug 1998, Ian Wells wrote:
> You make valid arguments and have some good points, however:
> 
> > - if a file format has nowehere to put an 'attribute' such as a
> > copyright message, a thumbnail, or whatever, it's not appropriate to
> > put the attribute in the file.  Word 97 files allow thumbnails and
> 
> You realize that not only are you asking for GNOME to understand and be
> able to interpret every single file format ever created,

  [.. snip ..]

You know, it is not a bad thing to have GNOME understand every file
format, nor is it implausable. BeOS, like Amiga, has a flexible
framework called "Datatypes", which has a set of intermediate formats,
and a system for throwing a file in and having it automatigcally
decode it into the "general" format with the appropriate plug-in
converter. It works really well, and for the small problem space it
serves (i.e. file formats, mostly things like images and sounds), it
works incredibly well. People write their apps to be able to handle
"generic images" and they can load and save in any supported format.

> but you're also
> obsolescing almost every format currently in existance.  You're also
> saying that I'm completely screwed if I want to, say, make a HTML file.

However, I agree that the 'put everything in metadata' strategy is a
bit premature. :)

-- 
David Jeske (N9LCA) + http://www.chat.net/~jeske/ + jeske@chat.net