can HTML authors declare new tags?

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From: Dave_Raggett <dsr@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
Message-id: <9305191315.AA12583@manuel.hpl.hp.com>
Subject: can HTML authors declare new tags?
To: www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch
Date: Wed, 19 May 93 14:15:28 BST
Mailer: Elm [revision: 66.36.1.1]

Joe Germuska writes:

> That reminds me -- can HTML authors declare new tags?  It would seem far
> too complicated for clients to deal with newly introduced styles, but
> perhaps, with customizable displays, the client could just add unfamiliar
> styles to the "style index", and the user could make changes as desired...
> (remember I know next to nothing about the implementation of Web clients,
> so if this is outrageous, please be gentle :-)  

Actually the ability to extend HTML with specific semantic tags would
be useful for a variety of applications. At its most straightforward
the extra tags would be simply ignored by HTML browsers, but would be
very useful for special purpose indexing or database interfaces. Such
extensions should be declared using the appropriate SGML elements
e.g. <!ENTITY>, <!ELEMENT> and <!ATTLIST>.

Best wishes,

Dave Raggett,

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