1. Introduction

1.1 Purpose of this document

The Action Applications developed by the APC already allow to share content between users of a single host. The need for sharing content between different Action Applications nodes lead to these specifications. They are meant to be the basis of an actual implementation in the next release of the Action Applications, version 1.7.

1.2 Overview

The specifications are based on the Cross-Server Networking Feature Description v1.0 released on August 22, 2000 ( http://plus.aldebaran.de/apc-aa/csn.html). In chapter 4 of that document, two options are presented as possible ways to specify the cross server networking . From these options, the second one as described in sub chapter 4.3 was chosen by the Toolkit Steering Group as the one to implement; thus, this document specifies the elements of that option:

• APC AA RSS 1.0 module
• APC rss aa module Server
• APC rss aa module Client
• Modifications to Actions Applications Administrative Interface

1.3 Document Revision History

• 0.1 - 2000/12/07 initial release
• 0.2 - 2000/12/13 changes:
  • chapters 1 ("Purpose of the document") and 2 ("Introduction") merged
  • added a description of the two different modes, feed establishing mode and feeding mode, to section RSS DTD extension definitions
  • hopefully clarified query description in The tasks
  • Moved section 6.3 one level down in section hierarchy
  • Removed field ef_categories .selected. Instead, added new fields ef_categories.target_category_id and ef_categories.approved. Updated those spots which deal with these fields (rss aa module Client, The tasks )
  • added missing description of adding records to the ef_categories table in se_inter_import.php3
  • added missing description of modifications to se_filters.php3
  • added the possibility to grant access to all users at a remote node by leaving the user field in the ef_permissions table blank
• V 0.3 - 2001/01/.. changes: Migration from extended RSS 0.91 to RSS 1.0 and making rss aa module a module of RSS 1.0. This process involves several new aspects:
  • It is undoubtfully undangerous to say that the RDF specification is complicated and somewhat difficult to follow. Thus it is necessary to create a tutorial on how to understand RDF - at least on the parts we are using with the AA.
  • There is no such thing as a DTD in RSS 1.0 because RSS 1.0 is RDF based and thus uses an rdf schema rather than a DTD. The schema obviously can be represented in a machine readable format using rdf itself or in any other way - using natural language, for example. This means there is no way to automatically check RSS 1.0 data, unfortunately.
  • RDF is complicated. The representation of RDF data in XML form can come in several different ways which makes it hard to write correct RDF software. However, RSS 1.0 takes some parts of this complexity out again.
  • is Dublin core useful for us?
  • Renamed chapter 2 from "APC Extended RSS Document Type Definition" to "APC AA RSS 1.0 module"
• V 0.4 - 2001/021/13 changes:
  • Removed last references to "slice name" concept.
  • Minor corrections.
  • Introduced the RSS content module - replaced the <aa:text> element which did not support any format issues
  • Added parent category mechanism to aa:caterories container.
• V 0.5 - 2001/04/19 changes:
  • Rewrote apc aa module spec. Included field definitions and flexible field mapping in the data files.
• V 0.6 - 2001/04/20 changes: Some cleanups regarding the status of the content module.
• V 0.7 - 2001/07/18 changes:
  • Changes to the categories element to reflect the possibility of an item to have more than one category.
  • Introduced duplicating content of dublin core fields so we can carry formattetd text in our own aa:fielddatacont fields.