Some HTML+ remarks
Terry Allen <terry@ora.com>
Message-id: <199306132206.AA09176@ora.com>
From: Terry Allen <terry@ora.com>
Date: Sun, 13 Jun 1993 15:06:53 PDT
X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.0 10/31/90)
To: dsr@hplb.hpl.hp.com
Subject: Some HTML+ remarks
Cc: www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch
This is a belated response to a few points in Dave Raggett's post
<9306041049.AA16099@manuel.hpl.hp.com> of Fri, 4 Jun 93.
Sorry to be so slow.
>> is Terry Allen
> is Dave Raggett
>> PANEL is like a Sidebar; it floats, as FIGs may. It seedms
>> to me that there needs to be a default anchor point (not
>> the ANCHOR element, necessarily, just an anchor) for floats,
>> such that one can say the object may be placed at that point
>> or after, but not before.
>Given that you can name most elements with the ID attribute and use
>that as the basis for a link, it seems reasonable to use this for
>anchoring panels, e.g.
> <PANEL AT="p34">
>With your suggested semantics that the panel may be placed at that
>point or after, but not before.
Elegant.
>> The same issue of anchor points pertains to <P MARGIN>, a
>> marginal note. Unless these have anchors in the text to
>> which they pertain, they can be placed only by sticking them
>> right into that text.
>My assumed semantics was that any text following after the margin
>note definition would start at the same line as the start of the
>margin note in the same way that DT and DD are currently treated by
>most browsers.
>Footnotes can be handled using the EMPH tag, e.g.
> The UK is now considering CDMA <EMPH TAG="FOOTNOTE">
> An abbreviation for Code Division Multiple Access - a
> spread spectrum technique devised for the military.</EMPH>
> for the third generation of mobile telephony.
>This approach has two benefits:
> o the footnote is anchored by virtue of where it is defined
> and doesn't require an additional attribute
> o browsers can render the footnote text inline, e.g. in
> brackets, or as a kind of pop-up link (dotted underlines?),
> or at the bottom of the page if a paged imaging model
> (rather than a scrolled model) is in use.
This is fine; I hadn't been thinking of dumb character terminals.
A minor point: there has to be some mechanism
for dealing with marginal notes that overlap: you could have
two footnotes on the same line, or two long marginal notes
only a few lines apart.
>> I am confused by INPUT and the remark that it goes to make
>> up Forms. Would someone please give an example of usage?
> [long and intriguing response deleted]
I liked the form example, and intend to try it out.
Keep up the good work!
Regards,
--
Terry Allen (terry@ora.com)
Editor, Digital Media Group
O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
Sebastopol, Calif., 95472