Internet Draft R. Gellens Document: draft-ietf-acap-book-05.txt QUALCOMM Expires: September 2001 March 2001 ACAP Bookmarks Dataset Class Status of this Memo: This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026. 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 working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet- Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at . 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. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society 2001. All Rights Reserved. Gellens Expires September 2001 [Page 1] Internet Draft ACAP Bookmarks Dataset Class March 2001 Table of Contents 1. Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2. Conventions Used in this Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 3. Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 4. ACAP Bookmarks Dataset Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 4.1. ACAP Bookmarks Dataset Class Prefix . . . . . . . . . . 3 4.2. ACAP Bookmarks Dataset Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 5. Recommended ACAP Bookmarks Dataset Attributes . . . . . . . 3 5.1. Basic Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 5.2. Specific Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6. Common ABNF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 7. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 9. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 10. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 11. Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 12. Full Copyright Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 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 between users. 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. Comments Public comments can be sent to the IETF ACAP mailing list, . To subscribe, send a message to with the word SUBSCRIBE as the body. Private comments should be sent to the author. Gellens Expires September 2001 [Page 2] Internet Draft ACAP Bookmarks Dataset Class March 2001 4. ACAP Bookmarks Dataset Class The ACAP Bookmarks dataset class defines a set of attributes for each bookmark, and provides for bookmark inheritance and hierarchy. 4.1. ACAP Bookmarks Dataset Class Prefix Datasets whose names begin with "/bookmarks" are assumed to contain bookmark entries as defined in this specification. 4.2. 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 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. 5. 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], including the Core Rules. All attributes are single-valued and textual (do not contain binary data) unless otherwise stated. The ABNF 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. 5.1. 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 uniquely identify the bookmark. The name MUST be unique, but is not expected to be descriptive, and generally is not suitable for display to users. It is client-defined. Gellens Expires September 2001 [Page 3] Internet Draft ACAP Bookmarks Dataset Class March 2001 The "entry" attribute is also used for ordering. When selecting the "entry" attribute for a new bookmark, in addition to uniqueness, the client selects a string which causes the new entry to appear in the desired order, when sorted using the "i;ascii-casemap" comparator [ACAP]. For example, to insert an entry between "a1" and "a2", "a1a" could be used. subdataset The "subdataset" attribute indicates that there is a subdataset of this entry. The value of this attribute specifies the actual location of the subdataset, per [ACAP] section 3.1.1. For the bookmarks dataset, a value of "." is most commonly used for a user's own entries, indicating that the subdataset exists directly beneath this one. However, especially when inheriting bookmarks from group or site collections, the value of this attribute may point to a dataset on the same or a different ACAP server. 5.2. 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 Gellens Expires September 2001 [Page 4] Internet Draft ACAP Bookmarks Dataset Class March 2001 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 separator for display purposes. The Folder type is used for a container or folder (used with ACAP subdatasets). 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. The Frameset type is used to contain the state of a web page with frames. In this case the URL of the main page is contained in the 'bookmarks.URL' attribute, and the URLs for other frames are contained in subdataset entries. book-type = "separator" / "link" / "alias" / "folder" "frameset" 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. ACAP URLs are specified in [ACAP]. book-url = url ;defined in [URL] 6. 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 Gellens Expires September 2001 [Page 5] Internet Draft ACAP Bookmarks Dataset Class March 2001 year = 4DIGIT 7. Examples /~/bookmarks/ entry a23gzk bookmarks.Date.Added 19840101000001+0800 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.fog/ entry b1799 bookmarks.type separator 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/ entry zz99 subdataset . bookmarks.Name Contemporaneous Contemplations bookmarks.Type folder /~/bookmarks/zz99/ entry a1a1 bookmarks.Date.Added 19990401000002+0800 bookmarks.Description I laughed so hard beer came out my nose and my then my roommate saw and started laughing and choking bookmarks.Last.Modified 19990401000002+0800 bookmarks.Last.Visited 19990401000001+0800 bookmarks.Name Why Beer is Better than ... bookmarks.Type link bookmarks.URL http://trash.example.org/~b1ff/ beer.html entry b2b2 Gellens Expires September 2001 [Page 6] Internet Draft ACAP Bookmarks Dataset Class March 2001 bookmarks.Date.Added 19990401010003+0800 bookmarks.Description Commencement address delivered by Clinton and Vonnegut to Vassar bookmarks.Last.Modified 19990401010003+0800 bookmarks.Last.Visited 19990401010000+0800 bookmarks.Name Clinton and Vonnegut at Vassar bookmarks.Type link bookmarks.URL http://april.fools.oaf/vassar-mit 8. References [ABNF] Crocker, Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications: ABNF", RFC 2234, Internet Mail Consortium, Demon Internet Ltd., November 1997. [ACAP] Newman, Myers, "ACAP -- Application Configuration Access Protocol", RFC 2244, Innosoft, Netscape, November 1997. [KEYWORDS] Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", RFC 2119, Harvard University, March 1997. [URL] Berners-Lee, Masinter, McCahill, "Uniform Resource Locators (URL)", RFC 1738, CERN, Xerox Corporation, University of Minnesota, December 1994. [UTF8] Yergeau, F. "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 10646", RFC 2279, Alis Technologies, January 1998. 9. 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. 10. Acknowledgments Many thanks to the participants of the IETF ACAP working group for their help, comments, and suggestions. 11. Author's Address Randall Gellens +1 858 651 5115 QUALCOMM Incorporated randy@qualcomm.com 5775 Morehouse Drive Gellens Expires September 2001 [Page 7] Internet Draft ACAP Bookmarks Dataset Class March 2001 San Diego, CA 92121-2779 U.S.A. 12. Full Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The Internet Society 2001. All Rights Reserved. This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than English. The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns. This document and the information contained herein is provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Gellens Expires September 2001 [Page 8]