Re: Possible method for adding footnotes.

On Fri, 7 Feb 2003, Toby A Inkster wrote:
>
> On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 02:42:30PM +0000, Ian Hickson wrote:
> | On Tue, 4 Feb 2003, Toby A Inkster wrote:
> | > A user agent supporting the <note /> element should replace it with a 
> | > number -- the first note on the page with a 1, etc... like with footnotes. 
> | That is significantly harder to author, generate, style, and maintain.
> 
> That's not true -- it can already be implemented with <span /> elements 
> and CSS, however it would be nicer if there was an element that would 
> allow this to be done semantically and would work for users without CSS 
> suport.

I don't know of any way, current or proposed, short of a transformation
step, that lets you turn a note marked up as a fragment identifier to
another element (or using IDREF) into a sidebar note at the point where
the note is raised.

It is also harder to author (you have to edit multiple parts of the
document to add a note), harder to generate (you have to remember a list
of notes to output them at the end of the document) and harder to maintain
(you have to prevent ID clashes).

On balance, the inline note idea is, IMHO, a lot simpler and preferable,
since the only disadvantage is that it requires that UAs implement it
straight away. Indeed, that almost seems like an _ad_vantage.

-- 
Ian Hickson                                      )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
"meow"                                          /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
http://index.hixie.ch/                         `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'