Re: Technique Reducing The Need For In-Your-Face URLs

> reading something on a web page and then wanting to email
> it to you, so I copy-and-paste and send it to you.  The links
> will be lost during that process.

Good point. I wonder if in the future there will be different kinds of
copying mechanisms: copying media and converting it into text form? For
example, if I select a Web page, and copy the text, it should convert the
<img alt=""> to their alt attributes, and <a href=""> to their href
attributes... Maybe AU would be interested in that?

> Printability is one of the primary reasons for this;

That's always the major reason. Even in 5/10 years time when CSS is more
generally accepted, I don't think there will be many changes. People will
still feel the need to have in-your-face URL's because of the "pre-CSS
browsers"... and that is a problem. If 99% of people haven't got a gimmick
that makes pages more accessible, do you have to provide fallback
mechanisms for those 1%, and cause problems for the 99%? The answer appears
to be yes...

> Stylistically, I think inline "in your face" URLs are generally
> nasty unless they specify a simple site address, such as
> "the W3C's WAI (www.w3.org)".  [Yes, I know that's a machine
> name, not a URI,

Well, it's a domain name. Yes, they are generally accepted, and most
browsers will take them if you type those in... but what if one didn't? Oh,
and I think you might want the (www.w3.org) after the "W3C" not the "WAI"?

> If a URL is going to be directly stated, I feel it should be
> given by itself, and not inline;

Yes, or as a reference at the foot of the email. Maybe we should have a
techniques document for plain text :-)

Kindest Regards,
Sean B. Palmer
@prefix : <http://infomesh.net/2001/01/n3terms/#> .
[ :name "Sean B. Palmer" ] has :homepage <http://infomesh.net/sbp/> .

Received on Thursday, 18 January 2001 10:30:40 UTC