[Bug 10434] New: Specify rel="longdesc" as an equivalent to @longdesc

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=10434

           Summary: Specify rel="longdesc" as an equivalent to @longdesc
           Product: HTML WG
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: All
               URL: http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/links.html#linkTypes
        OS/Version: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: HTML5 spec (editor: Ian Hickson)
        AssignedTo: ian@hixie.ch
        ReportedBy: xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no
         QAContact: public-html-bugzilla@w3.org
                CC: mike@w3.org, public-html@w3.org


The @longdesc semantically represents two features in one: a link (like @href)
and a link type/link relationship of the kind 'longdesc' (like rel="longdesc").

It wouild be useful to register the "longdesc" as pure link relationship/linke
type. Then it would be possible to use normal <a>, <area> and <link> elements
to point to long description resources, instead of having to uset th @longdesc
attribute.

Advantages:

A rel="longdesc" would allow longdesc relationships to be pointed out in more
contexts (not just inside the <img> element). And it would also allow authors
to provide a link text together with the link. (For @longdesc, the only option
is to use the @alt attribute for that kind of information.) For example, <area
rel="longdesc" href="*" alt="*"> would allow authors to use image maps to
provide long descriptions, as recently suggested by Steven:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Aug/0287

And the idea has been discussed in several messages on public-html since the
HTMLWG Decision on ISSUE-30.  

A prelimnary letter has been sent to the link registry mailing list:
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/link-relations/current/msg00047.html

Howver, the link registry only registers relations that are documented in
another specification. Because of that, and - more importantly - because HTML5
needs rel="longdesc", it is hereby asked that rel="longdesc" is being taken
into the spec.

If possible, rel="longdesc" should have a more general meaning: In HTML4,
@longdesc can only be used  on <img> and <iframe>. Whereas rel="longdesc"
shoudl not have such element restrictions. Though it must be a link relation
that fulfils the WCAG requirements  - it should point to long descriptions as
described by WCAG.

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Received on Wednesday, 25 August 2010 17:07:08 UTC