Publishing WG Telco, 2018-10-15: use case document, WP-s in non WP-aware browsers

See minutes online for a more detailed record of the discussions.

Use Case Document

The group discussed the current state of the Use Case document and what should be done around it, also in view of the dedicated session at TPAC. The editors plan a GAP analysis of the document in relation to the WP draft. The feeling is that the use cases are there, it is more a question on how to present them in relation to the draft. The ultimate question the document should help with is to give more specific features that WP-aware User Agents are supposed to accomplish when handling a WP.

WP rendering in non WP aware browsers

The question raised by issue 271 is what can be said about non WP aware browsers when rendering a WP (essentially, the primary entry page). The discussion converged towards the question whether this would be mostly some sort of a general design principle: in every step on the way the design should try to assure that a feature does make sense when such a situation occurs. A typical example is the handling of the TOC: if it is part of the primary entry page, the browser can use it directly, but also adds to the information set via the manifest, and a WP-aware User Agent can provide a richer functionality.

The questions arising are what other features could have a similar treatment (pagelist, title, boundaries of the WP), whether the design principle may lead to restriction (eg, the TOC MUST be in the primary entry page as opposed to any resource in the WP), etc. This may lead to the issue of profiles (a WP that is authored with a generic browser in mind, or only for a packaged version, ie, EPUB4), how would these different profiles relate, etc. Certainly a discussion to be followed.