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Archiver > TMG > 2005-10 > 1128437724


From: Darrell Martin <>
Subject: RE: [TMG] Wishlist for Exhibit Log
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 10:55:24 -0400 (EDT)


** my Web client sets "Reply To" against my will, sorry **

Greetings:

There are some things that I would regard as very, very, serious problems with any system of linking file objects as exhibits to persons or events in TMG. (For this discussion, an internal exhibit is included in "file object" although that is technically way off base.)

Problem 1. Anything that requires the user to create multiple copies of one file object, in order to use all program features

TMG does not do that now, and shouldn't start.

Robin L. has proposed that multiple "versions"
of a file object would be useful. He is talking
about resolution, shading, cropping, file type,
and that sort of thing. I'm not happy about
"cropping"; that seems to me to change the
content of the image, even if subtly. Otherwise
he has convinced me. But as an *option*.

It really doesn't matter much what you mean
by "version", by the way. The minute the barn
door is open, the horse will bolt. I guarantee
that within two days of this feature being made
available *somebody* will have a picture of a
robin (the bird) as one "version" of a portrait
of Robin (the Lamacraft) or something very
similar [grin]. But the program design should
*NOT* presuppose this usage, IMHO.

This would also suggest that a text file object
might have different file types, fonts, etc. and
be handled in the same way as a "version" of
one file object.

Problem 2. Anything that stores data which is specific to the file object, in a record which is specific to a link

TMG does that to a certain extent now regarding
exhibits. Jim Byram asked for comments about
how the Exhibit Manager could work better, and
that among other things spurred this thread.

Problem 3. Anything that stores data which is specific to the link, in a record which is specific to the file object

Some users seem to think this is OK. That may
be a misunderstanding (as likely on my part as
otherwise), it may be terminology, or it may be
a real desire to do something that is just a Bad
Idea from a program design standpoint.

--------------------
You will note that I have not used the word "exhibit" to describe the file object or the link. To some extent, terminology is very important; new users should not have to prowl this list just to figure out what a word means in TMG, at least not very much. However, it is usage that is crucial. In that light, some comments about terminology:

Comment A. Captions

Two online definitions:
"A brief description accompanying
an illustration."

"A title, short explanation, or
description accompanying an
illustration or a photograph."

A caption is not a necessary, or unchanging, characteristic of a file object. It is a characteristic of the *use* of that file object to illustrate. "Here, let me show you what I mean". In TMG using my terms, an illustration is a file object linked to a person or Tag. When that file object's contents are output as an illustration, in a report or a Web page or whatever, a caption may be useful. However, its function is not primarily to describe the contents of the file object, just to say quickly how it applies as an illustration of the point being made.

Of course a caption may be the same in one link as in another, or it may be quite different. Hence, although I agree with Richard Damon that a default caption (similar in function to a default Tag Type sentence definition) is a useful construct, the actual caption itself (meaning, the data necessary to fully define it) MUST be stored at the **LINK** level; even if the stored data is only "use the default".

Comment B. Topics

The topic of a file object to me is its contents, and never varies. Others think of topic as relating to the link between a file object and a person or Tag. Fine. But to the programmers: please, please, do *NOT* use it to mean both. Pick one and use some different word for the other.

Comment C. Multiple uses of terms

Expanding on Comment B: Bob V. and company, if you do redesign the Exhibit Log / Exhibit Manager, please don't use the same term to refer to two different but closely related things. Specifically, besides Caption and Topic, I'm thinking of Description.

Darrell




Darrell A. Martin
a native Vermonter in exile in Illinois


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