Re: Prioritisation

> On 05 Aug 2015, at 11:45 , Kaveh Bazargan <kaveh@rivervalleytechnologies.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 5 August 2015 at 10:36, Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org> wrote:
> Leonard,
> 
> > On 04 Aug 2015, at 21:38 , Leonard Rosenthol <lrosenth@adobe.com> wrote:
> >
> > With the focus here on terminology, I think that we also need to be careful about what the definition of a “page” is in this context.
> >
> > In reading over the various messages here, I see (at least) three different definitions.
> >
> > 1 – The content that fits on the device’s screen/output without requiring any scrolling.
> > 2 – The content that maps to a semantic concept in the publication (eg. Index, chapter, article, etc.) and may require scrolling
> > 3 – The content that maps to the printed or fixed layout representation.
> >
> 
> I like this differentiation, and I would think that #2 is indeed very important but we may want to, eventually, completely dissociate it from the concept of paging.
> 
> My understanding is that publishers, these days, put some sort of a page mark into the digital output (in the form of an invisible element, of a metadata, etc.). The purpose of this is to be able to *link* (either conceptually or through real hyperlinks) into the document. It is obviously important for various use cases that came up in this thread already (and others) like academic reference or classroom usage. But, just as you say, handling these may require scrolling and that because the concept of these anchors are, actually, orthogonal to display, ie, pages in terms of #1 and #3.
> 
> I think there is an interesting discussion to have on where anchors should be put, what is the granularity of those, can (in future) some sort of a robust anchoring approach take over the need for these anchors, etc. It is largely a usability issue, but I think it is better if we separate it from the concept of pagination…
> 
> [...]
> 
> I think we would make progress so much faster if we could refer to chunks of information (e.g. paragraphs, as lawyers do now) rather than the 100s of years old physical page model, which is a really too big a target anyway. But the publishing industry is not exactly forward looking, so I guess we'll be stuck for a few more decades with having physical pages as the "version of record". :-(

Let us be optimistic!:-)

Whether paragraphs are the right chunks, or sections, or something else: I really do not know. Actually… there may not be a universal answer: what is necessary for legal documents (and which would probably work well for, say, scholarly publishing, eg, in humanities, where page references are ubiquitous) may be an overkill for novels. (Think of the number of references you would have in the "War and Peace" :-)

But yes, putting markers (and/or providing means to links) into chunks of information is the right abstraction.

Ivan


> 
> 
> --
> Kaveh Bazargan
> Director
> River Valley Technologies
> @kaveh1000
> +44 7771 824 111
> www.rivervalleytechnologies.com
> www.bazargan.org


----
Ivan Herman, W3C
Digital Publishing Activity Lead
Home: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/
mobile: +31-641044153
ORCID ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0782-2704