Re: Proposal for XREF element

Scott E. Preece (preece@predator.urbana.mcd.mot.com)
Tue, 1 Aug 95 13:19:44 EDT

From: evan@hplerk.hpl.hp.com (Evan Kirshenbaum)

| Add a new XREF element with the following definition:

---

An alternative would be to extend the anchor element by adding a new attribute USETEXT which could be set to PROVIDED (the default) meaning to use the text of the anchor PREFERRED meaning to take what the referenced ID exports CALC meaning to take the calculated tag generated by the style sheet (numbers or letters or whatever) ORDINAL meaning to use the position of the item within whatever element it is contained to control what text to display for the reference, and to add to all elements supporting the ID attribute the new attribute IDTEXT, (which the author could specify to give a preferred text for references to that ID).

That would make Evan's example look like:

<ol> <li ID="fish.catch">Catch the fish, <li ID="fish.clean" IDTEXT="Cleaning">Clean the fish, <li ID="fish.cook">Cook the fish, <li>Eat the fish </ol>

Step <A HREF="fish.catch" USETEXT=CALC></A> may take quite a while. The <A HREF="fish.cook" USETEXT=ORDINAL></A> step smells the best. The <A HREF="fish.clean" USETEXT=PREFERRED></A> step is the most unpleasant.

It would probably be reasonable to have the PREFERRED attribute default to the name and to have the CALC attribute default to the PREFERRED attribute.

One thing I don't like about ORDINAL is that it doesn't deal with the whole problem - if you have a list within another list, is the ORDINAL of an element relative to the inner or outer list? Either way is wrong for some uses. I don't really think people would use ordinals very much, anyway.

scott

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scott preece
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