Linking to binary URLs

I would like to suggest that WAI consider guidelines for linking to binary
resources (e.g. PDF, Word and PowerPoint files) and also citation of such
resources in email (e.g. to this list).

I would suggest that URLs should *not* point to binary files directly but
instead point to an intermediate HTML file which provides links to various
versions of the file e.g. PowerPoint (best suited for presentation and
printing thumbnails), HTML conversion of PowerPoint file (suitable for
viewing if you don't have a PowerPoint viewer, or the wrong version of
PowerPoint, can be indexed) and, in the future an aural cascading style
sheet version of the PowerPoint file (we're waiting for MS to develop
something like this).

Pointing directly to a resource will not provide any flexibility to do
things like this (or embed other useful metadata, such as Dublin Core
resource discovery metadata, rights metadata, version number details, file
sizes, etc.)

As example of what I suggest see:

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/jusw-sep1998/


------------------------------------------------------
Brian Kelly, UK Web Focus
UKOLN, University of Bath, BATH, England, BA2 7AY
Email:  b.kelly@ukoln.ac.uk     URL:    http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
Homepage: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/b.kelly.html
Phone:  01225 323943            FAX:   01225 826838

Received on Wednesday, 23 September 1998 04:53:04 UTC