Re: APPLET = FIG (was Re: Java Applet element proposal)

Paul Burchard (burchard@horizon.math.utah.edu)
Sun, 4 Jun 95 04:12:40 EDT

"Terry Allen" <terry@ora.com> writes:
> Ugh. concatenating att values is real ugly. This data
> should either be element content [...] or non-SGML info
> pointed at by a URI.

Agreed. And since very long URIs can occur anywhere, we should
avoid a <FIG>-specific solution. The best practical solution is
probably to make use of element content inside <HEAD>, which is by
default not rendered. In other words, what we need is a non-empty
form of <LINK>, and support for indirect reference to <LINK> URIs.

For the first, perhaps </LINK> could be made omissible, instead of
having <LINK> be empty? That would simplify matters. If not,
invent a new tag like <LLINK>.

For the second, we could either create a new common linking
attribute (extending the current list of REL, REV, etc.), or allow
LINK indirection as I have previously proposed. Link indirection
means: if the target of a link is a another link, follow it too.

So, if </LINK> can be made omissible and link indirection seems
like a good idea, we could use the following mechanism for very long
URIs:

<HEAD> <LINK ID=xxx>http://www/script.class#x=1;y=2</LINK> </HEAD>
<BODY> <FIG SRC="#xxx">...</FIG> </BODY>

The use of element content for URIs does present additional
encoding complications, as you say, but placing URIs outside of the
document would be even worse from a practical point of view.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Burchard <burchard@math.utah.edu>
``I'm still learning how to count backwards from infinity...''
--------------------------------------------------------------------