Re: Proposal: New Anchor attributes

>From: Martin Hamilton <martin@mrrl.lut.ac.uk>
>It stikes me that this work, and the content negotiation stuff in HTTP 
>1.1, aren't necessarily mutually exclusive of any HTML tweaking.  
>But... history suggests that it would inadvisable to try and do 
>everything you suggest in HTML anchor/link tags.  It would be very 
>useful to establish at least a "standard" way of indicating multiple 
>targets of a hyperlink.  This could be done without any HTTP 1.1 
>deployment, URN/URC infrastructure, or tweaking of the URL format - and 
>would be of undoubted benefit.  Comments ?

Personally I don't need to solve the problem.
But... I see the benefits and needs to implement a light version
of enhanced links as an addon for the current HTML.

If I should solve the problem (hack something), I would
add ATTRIBUTES to the tags A nchor, IMG, and APPLET.
Something like X_ALTREF and X_ALTREF_CLASSIFY, for
defining alternative refs, together with a classification.
Values for classification could be:
-if older than 'date'
-timeout x 'secs'
... whatever I would need in the situation.

I would justify my work with:
-I need a solution NOW
-HTML is based on SGML, but first of all it should provide an easy
 and practical way of implementing good information systems
 on a hypertext basis. So it should be allowed to add things not
 philosophical correct to SGML, because they are extremely useful.


Another point is, if you develop a 'good' solution for enhanced
anchors not using HTML or HTTP, you have a solution also applicable for
satellite-communication information systems or direct-ATM-protocol-stacks
and you can implement it for Hyper-AVI, PDF, Multimedia-authoring systems...

So I prefer - with my heart, my soul, and my brain - the URC stuff,
but o my god if you need something now then do it now, but please
do it in a way defining a solution and EXPLICITLY state something like:

------
THIS IS A RELIABLE WORKING HACK, IT WILL BE OBSOLETED BY A UPCOMING 'URC'
SOLUTION. PLEASE DO NOT USE IT AS A FINAL STANDARD.
HELL, DEATH, AND HORROR FOR THOSE, WHO DO NOT RESPECT THIS STATEMENT.
------


Bye
   Danny

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Received on Wednesday, 3 July 1996 04:55:10 UTC