Re: HTML Microdata

 <link type="foo/xml" src="microdata.xml />
 
 microdata.xml then has rules to apply microdata information based upon  CSS selectors in the document, similar to how XSL works.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, sort of, but not really.  There is no bullet-proof redaction method and an illusion of control.  "WYSIWYG" is a powerful paradigm, but it only applies to walled gardens: "SEYF"; Share everything, you first.  Semantics is less than worthless in that transportation environment, although in that storage environment it looks a bit like open linked data.

--Gannon
--------------------------------------------
On Sun, 2/15/15, Michael A. Peters <mpeters@domblogger.net> wrote:

 Subject: HTML Microdata
 To: public-html-comments@w3.org
 Date: Sunday, February 15, 2015, 10:45 PM
 
 Hello,
 
 I never personally paid much attention to microdata before.
 However I am coding a CMS and so I have to look at it.
 
 I am having trouble understanding why this isn't at least
 optionally 
 applicable via an external file using CSS selectors.
 
 For example, a web page could have
 
 <link type="foo/xml" src="microdata.xml />
 
 microdata.xml then has rules to apply microdata information
 based upon 
 CSS selectors in the document, similar to how XSL works.
 
 That seems to make a lot more sense to me than creating new
 HTML 
 attributes, and it is obvious enough of a concept that
 surely I can't be 
 the first person to have thought of it.
 
 All the examples I looked at of microdata could easily be
 done that way, 
 and it has a lot of advantages:
 
 A) You can use the same microdata.xml file for many pages,
 allowing it 
 to be cached, reducing bandwidth.
 
 B) Many CMS systems store content separate from the
 template, and could 
 have the microdata link tag added to the head node by the
 template when 
 served, so the pages don't need to all be altered to make
 use of it.
 
 C) It looks like microdata is mostly useful to bots and
 crawlers, but 
 most traffic to a web site is not bots and crawlers, so why
 not have it 
 as an external resource the few clients that want the info
 can grab.
 
 D) Conceptually, it looks to me like it really is no
 different than CSS 
 - it applies a style to content. A style for machines to
 better 
 understand the content, not a visual style, but still a
 style - so why 
 not use existing CSS selectors that already work well with
 XML tools?
 
 E) It would allow the microdata to be applied to any type of
 XML document.
 
 Is there a reason it has to be embedded in the HTML itself
 and is not 
 available as an external file that can be referenced?
 
 I tried to think of one and couldn't.
 
 -=-
 
 I'm writing the list because when I went to http://microformats.org/ it 
 looks like they only want to discuss things via wiki which I
 think is a 
 horrible way to discuss things, so I won't participate
 there.
 
 I hope bringing the issue up here is the right place?
 
 Thank you for your time, and I really hope that an update to
 
 microformats will allow them to be defined external via CSS
 selectors, 
 because as far as I can tell, that is the right way to
 implement this 
 type of thing. It should at least be an option.
 
 Michael A. Peters

Received on Tuesday, 17 February 2015 19:43:54 UTC