[Refdb-users] xnotes

[Bruce D'A. <bd...@fa...>]

Has anyone out there looked at the new notes functionality that Markus 
has added?  If not please do.  I'm curious if anyone has any feedback.

The idea came from me, and is tied to my interest in xml and 
bibliographic annotation.  So, Markus, has come up with the basic 
structure, while my focus has been more on the micro-markup.  We thus 
currently have two somewhat different formats; one written as a DTD, 
the other as a Relax NG schema.

Most of the differences are minor, but I still wonder what people think.

Here's the example in 0.9.4-pre2:

<xnoteset>
	<xnote id="1" key="firstnote">
   		<title>myfirstnote</title>
   		<date><year>2003</year><month>10</month><day>12</day></date>
   	<note>the note proper</note>
   	<keyword>biochemistry</keyword>
   	<keyword>enzymes</keyword>
   	<link type="reference" target="WANG2002"/>
   	<link type="reference" target="Phadke1994"/>
   	<link type="author" target="Walsh,N."/>
   	<link type="journalabbrev" target="Biochem.Pharmacol."/>
	</xnote>
</xnoteset>

I have argued a few things:

1)  I don't like all the markup for dates, since this is just a 
datestamp that can be automated.

2)  I prefer changing "author" to "name" to allow linking to non-author 
names.

3)  The bigger conceptual difference is that I was thinking of user 
information as tied to the note proper, and not the xnote.  Whether I 
am right or not depends entirely on how people will use the format.  In 
my vision, a group could define an xnote with a topic title, and then 
individuals could add their own notes within that.

The other issue is that whatever we settle on ought to be able to 
standalone, or to be embedded elsewhere.  In my case, I embed the 
content in MODS (in its "extension" element).  Here's an example:

     <extension>
       <xnote xmlns="http://refdb.sourceforge.net/xnotes-ns">
	<note user="darcusb" date="2003-12-11">
	   <p>The note content</p>
	</note>
       </xnote>
     </extension>

Part of why I like the note-level user info is because it's easier to 
manage when embedding elsewhere (I find it awkward to a) include 
xnoteset in this context and b) declare the namespace in the same 
element as the user).

The datestamp is validated with schema datatyping, and it along with 
the user is auto-inserted with the macro templates I've written.

Bruce