Re: What about an <INSERT HREF="foo.txt"> tag ? (fwd)

On Thu, 13 Jun 1996, MegaZone wrote:

> Once upon a time Wolfgang HEES shaped the electrons to say...
> >was there ever the idea of creating an <INSERT HREF="foo.txt"> tag ?
> >It would take the contents of the specified file (be it HTML or not)
> >and display it in the page.
> 
> Yes, and it is called <OBJECT> - see the W3C pages for information on
> this tag currently in development.

On the subject including text files into HTML documents, has anybody else 
noticed the new <FRAME> tag that Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0beta1 
supports?

It allows you to write things such as:

  <Frame Width=123 Height=321 Src="wibble.html" Align="Left">

in order to include an HTML file in much the same way that you can with 
<IMG>.


Wouldn't it have been a lot better for them to have used the <OBJECT> tag 
for this purpose? eg:

  <Object Type="text/html" Width=123 Height=321 Data="wibble.html">
  <!--Fall back-->Please visit <A HRef="wibble.html">this page</A>
  </Object>

This would have avoided creating a new tag, and been more in line 
with current working drafts, and allowed for older browsers that don't
understand it.


The <FRAME> tag does have some attributes that <OBJECT> doesn't, but 
these could have been implemented using psuedo <PARAM> tags:

Instead of:
  <Frame Width=123 Height=321 Scrolling=No Src="...">

We could have:
  <Object Width=123 Height=321 Data="...">
  <Param Name="Scrolling" Value="No">
  Fall back text
  </Object>


What do people think?


References:

  Floating Frames: Step By Step 
    http://www.microsoft.com/intdev/author/newfeat/ss_ffram.htm

  Inserting Objects into HTML
    http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR/WD-object.html


Paul Fidler
-- 
Cambridge University Engineering Department
Trumpington Street, Cambridge, CB2 1PZ, UK

Received on Friday, 14 June 1996 12:19:24 UTC