Re: STRIKE tag is proposed, what about INSERT?

Glenn Randers-Pehrson ARL-WTD-TED-TIB <glennrp@arl.mil>

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Maybe in reply to: Murray Maloney: "Re: STRIKE tag is proposed, what about INSERT?"
Reply: Steven D. Majewski: "Re: STRIKE tag is proposed, what about INSERT?"

Date: Thu, 22 Sep 94 12:48:05 EDT
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From: Glenn Randers-Pehrson ARL-WTD-TED-TIB <glennrp@arl.mil>
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Subject: Re: STRIKE tag is proposed, what about INSERT?
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Dan, you may post this if you like. ../glennrp

In message <199409210905.KAA25208@curia.ucc.ie>,
Peter Flynn <pflynn@curia.ucc.ie> wrote:

>
>>       I see that the proposed specification for HTML 2 includes the
>> < STRIKE >< /STRIKE > tags.  It seems to me that it would also
>> be useful to have corollary tags to indicate material that has been
>> added, e.g. < INSERT > < /INSERT >.  
>
>I think we went this loop before,

I think it was previously discussed in html-ig under various topics,
the last being New Highlighting.html -- I hadn't discovered that mailing
list until Dan forwarded my msg there.  You were discussing the merits
of "< S >" versus "< STRIKE >", and a proposal to add "< NEW >" to
indicate new text.

By the way, in WordPerfect(R) the terms are "STRIKEOUT" and "REDLINE".
I don't particularly like these, though, because they seem to be
dealing mainly with the display mode.  Someone commented earlier that
"STRIKE" has connotations of overstriking the letters.  I'd rather see
names that dealt more with structure, like "DELETED" and "ADDED".
	
> and the question was, how many lawyers use HTML?
>
>It seems to me to make sense, but is it _needed_ ?
>

	I am not a lawyer but a programmer, and I want the feature for
displaying modifications to code listings.  If the < insert > tag
were available as well as the < strike > tag,  browsers could be made able
to display the old version, the new version, or a combined version "marked up"
to highlight the changes.

	I'd want the browser to be able to do this under user control.
For example, X-MOSAIC could have some X-resources and menu items controlling
the display modes.

For example, to display the old version:

	StrikeTextColor: black
	StrikeTextDisplay: true
	InsertTextDisplay: false

	or pick a menu item, "strike-insert display mode/old"

and to display the "marked up" version

	StrikeTextColor: light grey
	InsertTextColor: cinnamon
	StrikeTextDisplay: true
	InsertTextDisplay: true

	or pick a menu item, "strike-insert display mode/markup"

	I can imagine software that would compare two files and create an
HTML document containing the appropriate STRIKE or INSERT (or whatever they
might be called) tags.

	I can also imagine some implementation nightmares for browser
developers, e.g. how should anchors and images be displayed inside a STRIKE
or INSERT pair?

	But I suppose the lawyers might like this, too.  And mathematicians
and artists might appreciate the symmetry that's lacking if you only have
< strike >.

	If this is the wrong place to post suggestions for improvements to
HTML, forgive me, and tell me the right place.

 *CALL DSCLMR Glenn Randers-Pehrson, U.S. Army Research Laboratory
             glennrp@arl.mil