Re: HTML+ and printed books

brennan@hal.com (Dave Brennan)
Date: Fri, 14 May 93 11:06:43 CDT
From: brennan@hal.com (Dave Brennan)
Message-id: <9305141606.AA17867@hysteria.hal.com>
To: Dave_Raggett <dsr@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
Cc: www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch
Subject: Re: HTML+ and printed books
In-reply-to: <9305140939.AA15463@manuel.hpl.hp.com>
References: <9305140939.AA15463@manuel.hpl.hp.com>

>>>>> On Fri, 14 May 93 10:39:04 BST, Dave_Raggett <dsr@hplb.hpl.hp.com> said:

> Perhaps we need some structuring elements which determine how a group of
> related documents can be sequenced into a form suitable for printing,
                                                              ^^^^^^^^

And browsing.  As you mentioned, this would give you the ability for "next"
and "previous" type on-line browsing.  In addition you could view and
navigate through the TOC on-line.  I feel that using this kind of
information in an on-line browser can really help to reduce the "lost in
hyperspace" problem.

> The obvious structuring element corresponds to the contents list, e.g.
>
>    <CONTENTS> 
>      <A HREF ="doc1.html">Introduction to home brewing</A>
>      <A HREF ="doc2.html">Equipment Needed</A> 
>      <A HREF ="doc1.html">The basic skills</A>
>      <A HREF ="doc1.html">Popular recipes</A>
>    </CONTENTS>

Would these be top level headings?  I think a level indication is
appropriate in this case, so instead you'd have entries like:

>      <A HREF ="doc1.html"><H1>Introduction to home brewing</H1></A>

> This would be placed somewhere convenient with links back from other
> documents using the <LINK> element
>
>  <LINK REL="CONTENTS" HREF="contents.html"> 

While this make sense in a printed world where each chapter (node) only
appears in one book (for the most part), it doesn't make sense in the
hypertext world where a node can potentially occur in as many books as
people can dream up.  It would be up to the browser software to keep track
of the current book or books that you're browsing through.  The model would
be that an on-line book is just another "view" into the information space.
I think that this is a powerful and useful notion.

--
Dave Brennan                                      HaL Computer Systems
brennan@hal.com                                         (512) 794-2855