Comment Author List

Presentations contain a list of all authors who have comments in the presentation. This list is commonly referred to as the Comment Author List (CAL). The contains one entry for each author. Each entry is made up of five pieces of data: ID, Author Name, Author Initials, Last Index, and Color Index.

Each author that comments on a presentation is assigned an ID, which is a simple integer. This ID is unique within the presentation, and is assigned by the application itself.

The Author Name and Author Initials are taken from the application itself. If no initials are known to the application, the comment author is prompted upon the insertion of the initial comment. Both the Author Name and Author Initials are simple strings; that is, there is no association of the values with an identity (from a security or authentication perspective).

The Last Index (<lastIdx>) is an integer that documents how many comments the associated author has made in this presentation. When the author makes another comment, that comment is numbered using the next integer, and then this value is updated once again.

The Color Index (<clrIdx>) is an integer into a color table that is used to provide the solid background fill for the comment shape. The utility that this provides is that all of the comments by a particular author share the same color.

Here is an example of such a :

<p:cmAuthorLst>
  <p:cmAuthor id="0" name="Shawn" initials="SV" lastIdx="3" clrIdx="0" /> 
  <p:cmAuthor id="1" name="Brian" initials="BJ" lastIdx="7" clrIdx="1" /> 
</p:cmAuthorLst>

To determine if an author is already in the , one must consider only the Author Name and Author Initials data. If they both match an entry in the CAL, the author is already considered to be in the CAL; otherwise, the author is considered unique, and a separate entry is added for that author in the .

When the presentation is saved using PresentationML, a separate Comment Authors part is created that contains the CAL.