Re: Structured text v. page descriptions (was Netscape, HTML, and

Chris Lilley, Computer Graphics Unit (lilley@v5.cgu.mcc.ac.uk)
Thu, 27 Oct 1994 09:46:13 +0100

Jeremy Allaire said:

> [attribution deleted *will* people please puyt in attributions this list is
archived you know]

>>While I can create hypertext links that work _within_ an Acrobat document,
>>though, I can't, at this time, create links to other documents/resources on
>>the Web. I suppose I'd like to see someone come up with a browser that
>>could handle both HTML _and_ pdf documents internally, rather than using a
>>helper application (Acrobat), and could deal with links in those pdf docs
>>to other WWW resources. That would certainly go a long way towards giving
>>us pesky graphic designers what we've been noisily clamouring for.

> Adobe and Spyglass recently announced a partnership of sorts. Acrobat 2.0
> contains an API, which, according to Andrew Busey (S-Mosaic Prod. Manager),
> allows Web developers to create documents in a professional design
> environment, send them through the Acrobat 2.0 Distiller ($1,599), and then
> manually insert hyperlinks which in fact point to other Web resources --
> either an HTML page, an executable URL, or another Acrobat file. When a
> user has opened the Acrobat file through the Spyglass browser, Acrobat the
> works with S-Mosaic if a user clicks on an Internetbased hyperlink within
> the Acrobat document.

> I think this about solves it.

No, not really. It is an interesting experimental set up but does not really
solve it.

Main problem is, this is specific to a particular browser. I may well wish to
use others. I do not want to have to use another browser just to look at links
from pdf documents. I particularly do not want to have to use a different
platform.

Other problems, speaking as someone who writes documents for a living:

> create documents in a professional design
> environment, send them through the Acrobat 2.0 Distiller ($1,599), and then
> manually insert hyperlinks which in fact point to other Web resources

I would rather my professional design environment actually put in the links
rather than hacking them by hand. I have hacked into machine generated
PostScript in the past to get it to do unusual things (like print ;-) ) and I
do not want to be doing this on a regular basis to maintain documents. Suppose
I make some small mistake in the original document and have so regenerate the
PDF? Now I have to hack in all the URLs again. No thanks.

An interesting alternative scenario is WebMaker, where you create FrameMaker
documents and put the URLs into the original document. Much better.

> Acrobat the
> works with S-Mosaic if a user clicks on an Internetbased hyperlink within
> the Acrobat document.

>From this do I deduce that the pdf is displayed in a separate viewer which
then comunicates in presumably a proprietary way with this particular browser
to go get the referred-to documents? Not very nice, unless this can be
extended to all browsers on all platforms.

The original poster had a better idea, with pdf documents being displayed by
the browser. That means the pdf spec has to be a lot more open, so that people
can implement compliant browsers. Alternatively, they could be rendered
externally and then displayed inside the existing browser, much the same way
thet Chimera (I believe) does inline images.

The point is that the user sees a unified interface, which was the original
inspiration for the Web concept at CERN

--
Chris