Careful of your terminology here, a "pointer" have the connotation of being rigid. An "embedded link" environment must be type safe and the connectivity between the cells must be very robust.
The following is a suggested starting point defining embedded link source forms. Hopefully, the terminology used in this description is not too far out of context for this thread. At least it provides a general roadmap of some of the meta machinery that should be considered at this infrastructure level.
- Source Form - An element record is dynamically created that links a Text POSITION to one of the following embed source forms.
- Thread - Reference to either a post or page is a hyperlink or passage link. A link can also be created to a passage within the same post or page. Connection to a post within a different discussion is a bind thread. A generic thread can be replaced with a thread type that provides the ability to declare semantics that identity the purpose of a subsequent post.
- Ad hoc - Declared operations that process composite nodes within a document page.
- Complex - A native image or animation can be represented in a native complex type. A type could replace image types such as EPSF, GIF, JPEG, TIF, and PICT. Three-dimensional forms can also be represented as well. Each complex instance derives its semantics from its encapsulating behavior.
- Extraction - Native data value sourced from a module instance. An element would evoke a specific extract operation that is based upon an extraction declaration within the source module type. The data result table provides column fields that represent individual atomic attribute, TextString^, tuple attribute, and blob type values. Multiple rows can represent tabular data as well.
- Dialog Service Bind - Manifest and ad hoc operations to header and step service types are referenced by a page document. Provides means to write and read display field data directly with a service instance.
- Resource Component - This native link enables connecting a discussion post to a comment. A community discussion enables users to conduct a requirements dialog by the development of a topic map. Their consensus posts can be linked to specific resource components. This capability enables a user to refer back to a discussion thread to determine how a specification was derived. Six forms of component comments may be linked to posts in the Post/Component Link section. This embed source form is not externalized for general platform use.
- Intrinsic - Sourced from within an embed element record and provides the ability to represent foreign information belonging to the essential Text itself without regard to external factors. Data is represented within a DataString^ slot that holds a binary blob type.
- WWW - A URL link represented as a variable TextString^ provide ability to access a Web resource since any reference is reducible to an ASCII string.
Cheers,
Sand
> From: Eric Armstrong <eric.armstrong@sun.com>
> Reply-To: ba-ohs-talk@bootstrap.org
> Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2002 17:42:14 -0700
> To: ba-ohs-talk@bootstrap.org
> Subject: Re: [ba-ohs-talk] Node Sequencing [Was: **** Instant Outlining!!!***]
> Resent-From: <klausner@cubicon.com>
> Resent-To: s.klausner@attbi.com
> Resent-Date: Tue, 23 Apr 102 20:41:16 EDT
>
> Sandy Klausner wrote:
>
>> Threading cells together is a good metaphor. The key is in the definition of
>> the meta data/instructions bound to each cell to serve as the
>> infrastructure. Any ideas around on what this architecture would look like?
>> Sandy
>
> Hmm. Cells as objects. Looks like a class, at this point,
> with a hidden list of dimension pointers.
>
>
>