Re: Linking to binary URLs

Greetings, Brian.  Good to hear from you.

> 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).

Let's return to the email issue later.

> 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).

Please check out the provisions in the Page Author guidelines.
In the following guideline you will find this issue addressed:

   Linkname: WAI Guidelines: Page Authoring
        URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/WD-WAI-PAGEAUTH-19980918/#contents

   Linkname: C.1. Only use technologies defined in a W3C specification
        URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/WD-WAI-PAGEAUTH-19980918/#C1

> 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/
> 

Now to return to the issue of "web pages" vs. email references
to ftp accessible resources, etc. ...

It is true that accessible usage of HTML doesn't depend that much
on whether it is served by HTTP or MIME.  On the other hand, the
W3C is not so convinced that it is in a position to make
recommendations about usage in email and the Internet at large.
Getting the techniques described in the WAI Page Authoring
Guidelines adopted for Internet information distribution on a
broader scale may be an Education and Outreach task best done by
networking with Email For All and other activities that are more
directly concerned with those modes of communication.

Al

Received on Wednesday, 23 September 1998 14:54:22 UTC