Internet DRAFT - draft-gellens-acap-book

draft-gellens-acap-book



Internet Draft                                                 R. Gellens
Document: draft-gellens-acap-book-00.txt           QUALCOMM, Incorporated
Expires: 12 September 1998                                  12 March 1998


                      ACAP Bookmarks Dataset Class


Status of this Memo:

    This document is an Internet Draft.  Internet Drafts are working
    documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its Areas,
    and its Working Groups.  Note that other groups may also distribute
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    A version of this draft document is intended for submission to the
    RFC editor as a Proposed Standard for the Internet Community.
    Discussion and suggestions for improvement are requested.

    Public comments can be sent to the IETF ACAP mailing list,
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    Private comments should be sent to the author.


1.  Abstract

    Storing URLs [URL] for later access has become common in Internet
    applications (for example, web browsers, FTP clients); these saved
    URLs have become known as bookmarks.  It would be desirable to
    access one's bookmarks from multiple clients and multiple machines.

    The Application Configuration Access Protocol [ACAP] provides an
    ideal mechanism for storage of bookmarks, providing for ease of
    coordination and synchronization of bookmarks between diverse
    applications and systems, as well as for hierarchy, inheritance,
    and sharing.




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    This specification defines a standard ACAP dataset class for
    bookmarks.


2.  Conventions Used in this Document

    The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", and "MAY"
    in this document are to be interpreted as defined in "Key words for
    use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels" [KEYWORDS].


3.  ACAP Bookmarks Dataset Class

    The ACAP Bookmarks dataset class defines a set of attributes for
    each bookmark, and provides for bookmark inheritance and hierarchy.


3.1.  ACAP Bookmarks Dataset Class Prefix

    Datasets whose names begin with "/bookmarks" are assumed to contain
    bookmark entries as defined in this specification.


3.2.  ACAP Bookmarks Dataset Hierarchy

    Each user may have a hierarchical set of bookmarks.  Nested or
    hierarchical bookmarks (that is, bookmark folders) SHOULD be
    represented using the ACAP Hierarchy.  Any entry in a bookmarks
    dataset can also be a hierarchy node by setting the "subdataset"
    attribute.

    Inheritance is likely to be useful both for inheriting sets of site
    or group default bookmarks as well as for inheriting user-specific
    bookmarks when using different machines.


4.  Recommended ACAP Bookmarks Dataset Attributes

    A Bookmarks dataset entry MUST have an "entry" attribute.  All
    other attributes are OPTIONAL.

    Attributes are specified using Augmented Backus-Naur Form [ABNF].
    All attributes are single-valued and textual unless otherwise
    stated.

    The BNF defines the content of the attribute values prior to their
    encoding as an ACAP string.  Clients MUST conform to the syntax
    when generating these attributes, but MUST NOT assume that the
    attribute values will conform to this syntax on access.  Servers
    MUST NOT enforce the syntax.




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4.1.  Basic Attributes

    These attributes are defined in ACAP [ACAP] and have meaning in all
    dataset classes.  The section describes how they are used in a
    bookmarks dataset.

    entry
        The "entry" attribute is used to hold a unique name for the
        bookmark.  The name MUST be unique, but is not expected to be
        descriptive, and may not be suitable for display to users.  It
        is client-defined.

    subdataset
        The "subdataset" attribute indicates there is another bookmark
        dataset underneath this entry.


4.2.  Specific Attributes

    These attributes are specific to the Bookmarks dataset class.

    bookmarks.Date.Added
        This contains the date and time of the original creation of
        this entry.  The value is expressed in UTC with a timezone
        offset, indicating the user's local time.

        book-date           = datetime ;specified in Common ABNF

    bookmarks.Description
        This contains the user-assigned description of the entry, as a
        series of CRLF-separated lines.

        book-description    = *line ;specified in Common ABNF

    bookmarks.Last.Modified
        This contains the date and time of the most recent modification
        of the entry.  Modification includes any user-initiated action
        (such as editing the description) but not automatic actions
        (such as updating the "Last.Visited" attribute).  The value is
        expressed in UTC, with a timezone offset indicating the user's
        local time.

        book-modtime        = datetime ;specified in Common ABNF

    bookmarks.Last.Visited
        This contains the date and time of the most recent access of
        the location represented by the entry's URL.  The value is
        expressed in UTC, with a timezone offset indicating the user's
        local time.

        book-visit          = datetime ;specified in Common ABNF



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    bookmarks.Name
        This specifies a descriptive name for the entry.  It does not
        need to be unique.

        book-name           = 1*(VCHAR / SP)

    bookmarks.Type
        This contains a token describing the type of the entry.  The
        Separator type indicates the entry is a container or folder.
        The Alias type is used for an alias entry, in which case the
        URL is an ACAP URL to an entry in an ACAP Bookmarks dataset.
        The Link type is used to refer to any type of object, for
        example, a web page or a file.

        book-type           = "separator" / "link" / "alias"

    bookmarks.URL
        This contains the URL of the object referred to by this entry.
        For Link type entries, this can be any type of URL.  For Alias
        type entries, this is an ACAP URL.

        book-url            = url ;defined in [URL]


5.  Common ABNF

    The following [ABNF] rules are used above.

        datetime    =   year month day hour minute second timezone
                        ;UTC and offset to local time

        day         =   2DIGIT

        hour        =   2DIGIT

        line        =   *(VCHAR / SP) CRLF

        minute      =   2DIGIT

        month       =   2DIGIT

        second      =   2DIGIT

        timezone    =   ("+" / "-") 4DIGIT

        year        =   4DIGIT


6.  Examples

        entry                        a23gzk
        bookmarks.Date.Added         19840101000001+0800


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        bookmarks.Description        Where I get my worms
        bookmarks.Last.Modified      19971114071202+0800
        bookmarks.Last.Visited       19980311173545+0800
        bookmarks.Name               Fred's Bait and Tackle
        bookmarks.Type               link
        bookmarks.URL                http://www.fredsbaitandtackle.com/

        entry                        xyzzy
        bookmarks.Date.Added         19770612140004+0500
        bookmarks.Description        This really cool site I stumbled
                                     on when looking for something
                                     else.  It has detailed and easy
                                     to follow instructions on how to
                                     crush beer cans
        bookmarks.Last.Modified      19971231235902+0800
        bookmarks.Last.Visited       19980311173510+0800
        bookmarks.Name               Yip Yap's Helpful HowTo Page
        bookmarks.Type               link
        bookmarks.URL                http://stud.cheesy.edu/~jru/


7.  References

    [ABNF] Crocker, Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications:
    ABNF", RFC 2234, Internet Mail Consortium, Demon Internet Ltd.,
    November 1997. <ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2234.txt>

    [ACAP] Newman, Myers, "ACAP -- Application Configuration Access
    Protocol", RFC 2244, Innosoft, Netscape, November 1997.
    <ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2244.txt>

    [KEYWORDS] Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
    Requirement Levels", RFC 2119, Harvard University, March 1997.
    <ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2119.txt>

    [URL] Berners-Lee, Masinter, McCahill, "Uniform Resource Locators
    (URL)", RFC 1738, CERN, Xerox Corporation, University of Minnesota,
    December 1994. <ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1738.txt>

    [UTF8] Yergeau, F. "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 10646",
    RFC 2279, Alis Technologies, January 1998.
    <ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2279.txt>


8.  Security Considerations

    As with ACAP datasets in general, it is important that access
    controls are set correctly on Bookmarks datasets.  Attributes may
    contain personal information which should not be disclosed except
    by explicit owner request.




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9.  Author's Address

   Randall Gellens                    +1 619 651 5115
   QUALCOMM, Incorporated             +1 619 651 5334 (fax)
   6455 Lusk Blvd.                    Randy@Qualcomm.Com
   San Diego, CA  92121-2779
   U.S.A.















































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