Link-4: Extended Linking Group Indirection

The last section of the spec discusses Extended Linking Groups.  These
are the magic glue that makes indirect links and hypertext-i-fying
readonly documents possible.  

Suppose I read a doc, and it's got an XLG, which causes me to read another,
and it has an XLG too, that is different?  Do I go on following the XLG
chain forever?  HyTime, whose BOS concept is related, has a BOSlength
or some such parameter.  Things we could do in XML include:

1. Saying nothing, and let processors work it out
2. Saying that XLG's should only be followed one step
3. Saying that XLG's should be followed for two steps.  Huh?  This actually
   makes some sense - you could have N docs each having a single-entry
   XLG pointing at the N+1th doc, which works as a hub document.
4. Defining an XML-XLG-COUNT attribute that says how many steps 
   the doc author thinks a processor should chain out, in order to
   build the appropriate set of links.


Cheers, Tim Bray
tbray@textuality.com http://www.textuality.com/ +1-604-708-9592

Received on Sunday, 18 May 1997 05:38:22 UTC