- From: Rolf H. Nelson <rnelson@w3.org>
- Date: Sat, 10 Apr 1999 12:05:44 -0400
- To: Laurent.Denoue@univ-savoie.fr
- CC: www-annotation@w3.org
>>>>> "Laurent" == Laurent Denoue <Laurent.Denoue@univ-savoie.fr> writes:
>> However, if you do decide to leverage the XPointer work, I
>> would advise embedding the XPointer inside a URL rather than
>> embedding the annotation inside an XPointer and ending up with
>> a new construct that is neither a URL nor an XPointer.
> Ok, I've answered to your email, telling you that the current
> prototype uses this kind of encoding :
> http://localhost:port/url?note=...&comment=...&...
> In fact, as you suggested, it would let people use a third party
> server like www.yawas.com to see the annotation, and it would
> not define a new thing which is not a URL, nor a XPointer.
> But I really think that extending the current definition of
> XPointers could be very nice. I agree that Xpointers are good
> to identify a subpart of a document, and I think next versions
> of Yawas should use XPointers instead of the current
> "minimalist" encoding.
> I see two possibilities to encode an annotation (xURL) : -
> extending the current XPointer definition to incorporate user
> defined "tags", like "comment", "type", "date", "author", ...
> This would lead to urls like :
> http://www.yahoo.com/#STRING(0,"word",1)COMMENT("ok")AUTHOR("laurent")...
> - or using the current ? notation to extend a XPointer This
> would lead to urls like :
> http://www.yahoo.com/#STRING(0,"word",1)?COMMENT=ok&AUTHOR="laurent"&...
> Best regards, Laurent.
One problem is that this would collide with the semantics of existing
urls. Most applications expect that http:// is followed by the host
name that the web resource lives on, followed by a path that holds
meaning only to the destination host, followed by a # and a fragment
identifier, where the fragment identifier points to a specific part of
a document but does not alter the document in any way.
Also, in general, it's good to have a clean separation between the mechanism
you use to point to part of a document (which could be xpointer, or a
more minimalist encoding) and the mechanism to state what annotation
should be attached to that point. That way you can mix and match
between annotation content encodings and pointing mechanisms.
-Rolf
--
| Rolf Nelson (rolf@w3.org), Project Manager, W3C at MIT
| "Try to learn something about everything
| and everything about something." --Huxley
Received on Saturday, 10 April 1999 12:05:52 UTC