- From: Jason White <jasonw@ariel.ucs.unimelb.EDU.AU>
- Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 10:58:46 +1000 (AEST)
- To: WAI Working Group <w3c-wai-wg@w3.org>
nOn Tue, 16 Sep 1997, Dave Raggett wrote: > On Tue, 16 Sep 1997, Jason White wrote: > > > What other kinds of dictionaries did you have in mind? > > - Abbreviations > - Pronunciations > - Hypertext links > There are two alternative approaches that could be considered. 1: Define a single link type (rel="dictionary"); then develop an XML DTD for dictionaries in general, with an attribute near the beginning of the dictionary file that indicates whether it is an abbreviation/phonetic//pronunciation dictionary, or a dictionary containing hypertext links of the kind that Dave has described. If this strategy is followed, then the user agent must retrieve the dictionary file before it can ascertain what type of dictionary it contains. Could this be a disadvantage? 2. Define separate link types, one for each kind of dictionary; or perhaps one for abbreviation/phonetics/pronunciation dictionaries, and another for dictionaries that provide hypertext links. If such an approach is adopted, then user agents which are not speech-based (and this of course includes a majority of HTML user agents) will not load dictionaries unnecessarily, only to discover that they are pronunciation dictionaries and not hypertext dictionaries. Thus, the issue is whether the link type should indicate to the user agent the type of dictionary involved, or whether this function should be left to the dictionary file format itself, as suggested in option (1) above. I would tend to support the second approach, since I think it would be better for user agents to be able to decide, based on the link type, whether or not to load a particular dictionary.
Received on Tuesday, 16 September 1997 20:58:54 UTC