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05 Nov 2004
Client View pane
A few blog-entries back I discussed the Microcontent-client. I would like to focus now on one of the three panes: The MicroContent view pane. This pane allows the user to view a single MicroContent item. In the case op an OpenRecipe, this would be a single recipe. In the case of a OpenBlog it would be a single entry. For audio the controls could be presented with some metadata (album cover, music category, etc.). And for a person it would be his address card. And in general for any file, it is the preview pane. And for a web-page it is the browser-page.
But not in all cases presenting just a single entry is useful from a usability point of view. The weblog-reader NetNewsWire created a solution for this: the combined view. In this presentation the listing and the viewing pane are combined into a single pane. This pane can be sorted on the metadata of each listing. All the entries of the listing are presented vertically. And the user can scroll through all entries. For blog-entries this is a very useful view (I prefer it). However for recipes this might not be very useful. For pictures it would be a single image, but then the slide show might be a better way to present a list of pictures.
It becomes more interesting if we dive into the technology behind this View pane. True MicroContent would consists of a RSS/XML like file, as is the case with blog-entries. It turns out that also the recipes in MacGourmet are also XML-files. They used the Property-List solution offered by Apple. And XML-files can be presented through a (modern) web-browser. But then a CSS-file must be present. Usually this CSS-file is hidden somewhere in the software of the client. However NetNewsWire decided to open this up and now anyone can write a CSS-file to present the blog-entries. MacGourmet opened up a little bit, by predefining several colour schemes. But they could open up that part as well.
And Omniweb adds per URL(?) settings for a web-page. Why not extend this idea to all MicroContent clients. For example a CSS-file for OpenRecipe desserts different from Main Courses. Surely there are still enough ideas in this space.
That leaves many closed applications (at least in the Mac-space), such as iPhoto, AddressBook, Finder, etc.
At least this gives an idea how a generic DLA client would look like: RSS+XML+CSS. And everything is presented through a browser engine. A generic viewing pane could mix MicroContent types. Probably not useful for the user, but possible. One might view a web-browser as a generic viewer. I assume however that each MicroContent-type will get its own client.