Microformats are usually embedded within html, using css tags to provide information on the structure of the content. Obvious, it's not that much the css tagging part that I am interested in but the reuse of the way to structure the information (XFN -> rel="friend met"; GEO -> latitude and longitude).
For instance, a way I approach this type of things is by having a text field with some content.
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| Dave |
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set the microf_rel of field tField to "friend met"
With the geo markup, you would have
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------Group GEO --------------------------
| ---------------------------
| | N 37° 24.49 |
| ---------------------------
| ---------------------------
| | W 122° 08.313 |
| ---------------------------
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set the microf_latitute of group "geo" to 37.408183
set the microf_longitude of group "geo" to -122.13855
What's the use of that approach? Why not simply use a database system?
That's an excellent question to ask.
Here the idea is these data are made available to the end user as a result of parsing a web page or another networked resource. These data are meant to be temporary, to provide a just in time view of a content stored elsewhere. It is not necessarily of interest to immediately store that information within a database. Decision to store these informations permanently or eventually to alter and modify them is left to the user.
I have two levels. I use custom properties to store values from the web (which could to be seen as the "default values") and I use a database to store values permanently eventually after these "web values" got edited by the end user.
Anybody having done something of that kind within an xTalk application?