Hi Kim, > I'm thinking if we're about to build all sorts of config > UI for the aliases, preferences, etc, shouldn't we > change the file format altogether? It'll be a lot easier > to work against the files programmatically if they are > XML-based.
Though I value the use of XML, I don't think this is the place for it. XML works best for structured data that involves a given set of paramters, with a maximum value on persistence across entities, and minimal reliance on interface. For the Aliases, though I see it as being a useful storage mechanism, I don't see it being as functional or as helpful as plain text. What happens with "&", ">" and ">" as aliases or within the bodies of values of alias fragments? They get screwed up or involve significant hand-holding to make them work. We can code around this through an interface, but it introduces a whole slew of problems we're better off, IMO, avoiding altogether. For the prefs it's even worse. The prefs really are straight javascript and can't easily be moved into a logical XML structure without losing the benefits of the fact that they are script-based. I can see that it would be *possible* to generate the script dynamically from XML values, but we lose situations where we want to prioritize the order of values being set or very tight control over the text used in the script (without using CDATA blocks which make things even weirder). I'm usually the first to advocate a structured language for control, but I don't see how this can work effectively. Regards, Shawn K. Hall http://12PointDesign.com/ http://ReliableAnswers.com/ '// ======================================================== "If a man harbors any sort of fear, it... makes him landlord to a ghost." -- Lloyd Douglas ------------------------------------------------------- The SF.Net email is sponsored by: Beat the post-holiday blues Get a FREE limited edition SourceForge.net t-shirt from ThinkGeek. It's fun and FREE -- well, almost....http://www.thinkgeek.com/sfshirt _______________________________________________ Archive: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dqsd-devel
