Date : Sat, 11 Aug 2001 07:08:28 -0700 (PDT)
From : Thomas Harte <t.harte@...>
Subject: Re: ANNOUNCE : UEF Specification 0.9
The criticisms of UEF so far have indicated not what I had mistakenly
previously believed - that the idea of packaging together more than just
machine readable media images was opposed - or that no-one wants to deal
with a method of combining this information on complexity grounds but simply
that the current UEF specification is a very inconvenient way of dealing
with these requirements.
So the answer is then to look for what can be accepted by the majority as a
smart way of packaging the information, and to a lesser extend the format of
the information with respect to DOC vs. HTML, and arguments of that form.
Would a form of UEF which contained URLs to related data sources be
accepted? For mature user-orientated operating systems (read : Windows,
MacOS, X+KDE or GNOME) this would actually simplify the mechanisms for
presenting this information to the user since a simple OS or UI call of
'open resource' could be made, or under mildly less well developed operating
systems, specific applications called.
Another benefit of that scheme over the current UEF method which is perhaps
not immediately obvious would be to the possibly soon to become significant
users with 'always on' net connections who can open an FTP site somewhere
and just click on a game to have it download and automatically launch and
play in seconds (this is already possible in ElectrEm) - they don't need to
wait for the download of parts they aren't actually going to look at.
Or perhaps a better idea is to use a higher level container and restrict UEF
to just tape, disc, state snapshot and ROM images with only some of the
'extra' information (when compared to other more simple media dumps)
retained? Then I suppose the smartest idea would be to provide a higher
level tool which launches an emulator with the UEF or other things with
other data as necessary. With respect to the 'extra' information left within
UEFs, I'd vote for the ROM hints and certainly the multiplexing features,
the latter of which I feel are always severely overlooked due to an
inadequate tool set and despite a wealth of great opportunities.
So then a question is : is HTML or XML and the current generation of
browsers good enough? Certainly if I put together an HTML menu which linked
to a PDF of the instructions, a PNG of the artwork and a UEF of the program
media right now, I would already be able to open it in my browser and have
all of the types display with only a single click, indeed if I'd configured
ElectrEm that way the UEF would load and run without any further interaction
and probably within 5-20 seconds. But is that altogether an acceptable
interface? Many people seem to take offence at so much being loaded onto
their browsers.
It certainly makes no sense for UEF to attempt to go against the grain if it
wants to be accepted long term, so please don't anybody hold back!
-Thomas
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