Re: Links that refer to a range of text, not just a point.

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Date: Thu, 25 Jun 92 22:50:05 MET DST
From: timbl (Tim Berners-Lee)
Message-id: <9206252050.AA02447@ nxoc01.cern.ch >
To: davis@willow.tc.cornell.edu
Subject: Re: Links that refer to a range of text, not just a point.
Cc: www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch

On types of links: Link types can descibe

-- hints at presentation (Footnote, in-line, embed, automatic or
   on demand, print this if you print me, don't search this if
   you search me, etc etc)

-- semantics of the documents (a is a previous version of b, etc)

-- semantics of THAT DESCIBED by the document, eg
   "The W3 software" is a part of "the W3 project" where the
   'is part of' in fact applies to the unquoted things, not the
   documents. There is something on link types on the web in

   http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/DesignIssues/LinkTypes.html


On areas and points:  No, the WWW links are not (in general) points
they are areas. In the broad sense they can be any object within
the document, as identified by the anchor ID. In the specific
case of HTML, they are areas which have a beginning and an end.
In the case of the actual W3 software, noone can handle
overlapping anchors because the text object underneath isn't powerful
enough.  There is also a problem showing overlapping source anchors
(buttons) to the user. But in principle, there is no reason'
why one shouldn't have overlapping anchors, or at least
nested ones.

But not now.

Tim