Editing EPrints4 Core Roadmap (section)

===Metadata fields===

* make sure the data is valid, according to the type's constraints. For instance, you cannot store a string into an integer

* maps any higher level type (e.g. URL) to a low-level DB type (e.g. varchar)

* must provide a clean and clear API to easily modify data (set_value, add_value etc)

* the type "file" whilst not being a piece of metadata directly is nonetheless a valid field - it is the only type that links data to a stored file (rather than being purely DB data).

* XML/SAX handlers are likely to be kept at the Meta-Field level (because this makes sense)

* aspects such as indexing, generating order values are more likely to be included in the Search components (so via Xapian for instance)

* review of the existing types is needed (40ish types at the moment) and non-core types must be removed (recaptcha, compound...)