Some thoughts on virtual structures

[Brent Turcotte <brentt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Virtual structures, which enable any data, such as Web pages 
and conventional databases, to be seen through the ZigZag structure"

-- from the "GZigZag in a Nutshell" article at
http://gzigzag.sourceforge.net/nutshell.html

A virtual structure is a mapping of data onto a hypergrid
implementation, as I understand it.

Here are some thoughts:

Ways to import information:
-- read a file byte per byte
-- use file conversion programs to convert similiar file formats 
   into a common one
-- export a file into XML format (or something similiar) with an
   application's internal programming language, then import the
   XML file
-- PUI cut & paste into a file, then import it 

Issues of mapping data into GZigZag
-- what information is put into the mediaserver and what is not?
-- what kind of information is mapped to dimensions and what is
   put in a list?  For example, a letter in a word processor has 
   a bunch of attributes to it -- like font type, font size, 
   superscipt, paragraph start, etc.  All the font information 
   could be mapped to a single dimension (and laid out in a corner
   list) or to many.
-- what data do you want modified or omitted?  In a raw file, there
   may be pointers to other parts of the raw file.  I can see
   information like this being omitted during an import.
-- what extra data or links do you want to add?  It may be useful
   to add indexes to a structure.  
-- in some imports (especially for database), custom dimensions
   would or could be created depending on field names.  Occasionally,
   naming conflicts would have to be resolved.


-- Brent