Re: about CritLink

On Mon, 30 Aug 1999, Laurent Denoue wrote:
> > Not just in theory.  CritLink is an application of the theory
> > that yields an actual, usable solution.
> 
> Oh yes ? Are you using the STRING operator, or also some navigational
> operators to find the anchor point ?

No, Crit doesn't use XPointers (such that they are -- if it did use
XPointers a few months ago, they wouldn't be XPointers any more now,
since the standard has changed).  All i meant was, Crit works.

> I propose :
> - Xpointer to uniquely identify the annotated text in the document

So... Crit doesn't have this, though it uses its own mechanism for doing so.

> - date/time of creation by the author

Crit has this (it gets it from the "Last-modified" date sent by the
web server when it serves the annotation document).

> - (optional) date/time when it was received by an annotation server (like Crit)

Crit doesn't have this.

> - (optional) author's name and email

Crit has this.

> - (optional) type of the annotation (your list of current markers is a good start),
> but I would label them : remark, question, answer, ok, not ok

Crit has this.  One could debate the various annotation link types 
for quite some time; all i'd like to say is that it's best to
encourage a small, simple set of types, where it's fairly obvious
what type anything should be.  If you present the user with too
many types to choose from, they lose the patience to think about it
and are less likely to bother selecting any type at all.

> I have a question : I recently heard about CSS and Layers. Do you think it is
> possible to use a kind of layer on top of the original
> document to include the annotations ?

Yes, i think that could work.  Indeed, it would make it possible for you
to put text wherever you wanted, as you speculate.  But i initially ruled
that out because it restricts you to an extremely limited audience.
Perhaps that is less true today than two years ago, but i still have a
tendency to stick to things that are simple and universal instead of
bleeding-edge browser features.  I'm sure, though, if you really wanted
to give it a go you could probably pull off a pretty slick interface
with DHTML and layers.


-- ?!ng

Received on Tuesday, 31 August 1999 05:46:21 UTC