Re: late draft of the 1.0 Clarifications

Bernie Roehl ([email protected])
Sat, 25 Nov 1995 10:06:28 -0500


Mitra writes:
> Thanks for the comments Bernie, some of them would have changed the spec,
> the 1.0 clarifications do just that, they clarify places that the spec is
> currently open to interpretation. There should not be any changes to the
> spec itself.

That's reasonable.

> GIF and PNG formats are recommended, but not required. JPEG is required.
> GIF is recommended because it is widely used, it is not required - because
> to do so would require license fees payable to Unisys

Okay, but "recommending" the use of a format that requires the payment
of royalties just doesn't sit well with me. Perhaps change the wording to
something not quite as strong? Something like JPEG required, PNG
recommended, GIF also commonly supported.

I really think it's important to steer world-builders *away* from the use
of GIF so that browser-implementers aren't forced to support it (and
therefore pay royalties).

> >* The suggestion of a naming convention for custom nodes and fields didn't
> > seem to make it into the spec; any reason why not? It seemed like a good
> > idea.
>
> Its in 1.1 - to put it in 1.0 would change the spec, rather than clarify it.

Does it actually *change* the spec? It's just sdvice, after all.

> >* The clarification that the "deepest" WWWAnchor wins is not there; this is
> > easy to add, and will avoid any confusion later.
>
> This just came up on the list the other day, its on the plate to be clarified.

It re-surfaced the other day, but I do remember there was a discussion of it
some months back.

> >* The proposal to change the default shapeHints settings to be
> > vertexOrdering COUNTERCLOCKWISE and shapeType SOLID didn't make it in; I'm
> > assuming this is in the cards for version 1.1 of the spec?
>
> Yes - its in 1.1

Cool.

> >* Clarification still needed in the materialIndex, normalIndex and
> > textureCoordIndex fields.
>
> On the list - it only just came up

Excellent.

> >* The exact meaning of the width field in the AsciiText node is unclear.
>
> Ditto

And ditto.

> >* Switch nodes were supposed to treat their children as Separators, and
> > should not select more than one of their children.
>
> No - that's a 1.1 change under debate, Switches are allowed to switch
> between materials, and select all of them in 1.0.

Hmm... I suspect that the reasons for eliminating "leaky" nodes are still
valid.

-- 
   Bernie Roehl
   University of Waterloo Dept of Electrical and Computer Engineering
   Mail: [email protected]    Voice:  (519) 888-4567 x 2607 [work]
   URL: http://sunee.uwaterloo.ca/~broehl

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