[MEI-L] typable events

[TW]

2013/8/7 Johannes Kepper <kepper at edirom.de>:
>
> [...] I see your point about inviting abuse when making @type more general available, and I guess I'm willing to follow that argument. However, I'm less convinced that @label is actually a better solution for my needs. Since I'm saying something _about_ my MEI, I wonder if an attribute in a private namespace might be an option? This would break validity (unless I change my MEI accordingly), but it would be clearly something said from "outside", without pretending to be my final MEI…
>

As adding temporary data to MEI files that is intended for further
processing steps seems not too uncommon (at least we do it and you do
it), maybe one could introduce something like HTML5's data-*
attributes[1] that give more flexibility, circumventing the need to
abuse existing structures for inappropriate purposes?  Probably
elements will work better than attributes, though.

One suggestion for your application could be

    <space xml:id="d6d3e1117" corresp="#d1e2682" dur="4">
        <tempData type="finalefix">
            <tempData type="sharedLayer">1</tempData>
            <tempData type="sharedElement">rest</tempData>
       <tempData>
    </space>

or, given we allow the fictional tempData element to be given
arbitrary attributes (possibly making @type mandatory):

    <space xml:id="d6d3e1117" corresp="#d1e2682" dur="4">
        <tempData type="finalefix" sharedLayer="1 "sharedElement="rest"/>
    </space>

That's probably cleaner than something more along the lines of HTML5
@data-* like

    <space xml:id="d6d3e1117" corresp="#d1e2682" dur="4"
        tempData-sharedLayer="1" tempData-sharedElement="rest"/>

although avoiding additional elements might might make things easier
for some applications.  In any case I fear that wilcard attribute
names like @tempData-* would not even be specifiable with ODD.

Speaking of ODD: Of course one would have to find good arguments for
introducing elements or attributes like this rather than creating an
ODD modification.


[1] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/dom.html#embedding-custom-non-visible-data-with-the-data-*-attributes