Re: <a footnote="proposal">

lee@sq.com wrote:
>[...]
>REL=FOOTNOTE might be appropriate for a link pointing to footnote.
>Our paper wrote:
>
>  FOOTNOTE
>     The FOOTNOTE relationship identifies a footnote.
>
>     When REL=FOOTNOTE is specified on an A element, the anchor is a
>     footnote marker and the target is a footnote. This can be used
>     to link from the footnote marker (or a highlighted word,
>     phrase, etc.) to an HTML document which contains the footnote
>     text, or to a portion of the same document (see REV=FOOTNOTE).
>
>     When REL=FOOTNOTE is specified on a LINK element, it can
>     specify a hypertext link to a set of footnotes which are
>     related to the current document, or to a set of end-notes.
>
>     When REV=FOOTNOTE is specified on an A element, the anchor is a
>     footnote; that is, the actual content of the footnote, as
>     opposed to a footnote marker. In this case, the target
>     specified by the HREF value, if any, is the footnote marker.
>
>     It has been suggested that the combination of REV=FOOTNOTE and
>     NAME=...  on an A element may be used to imply that the
>     enclosed content not be rendered until a link to it is
>     explicitly traversed, at which time it can be presented in a
>     popup window. This would allow for the inclusion of footnote
>     text within a document that would not be visible until the
>     reader wanted it to be presented. Developers of user agents are
>     free to experiment with  this proposed feature, but there is no
>     requirement that it be implemented.

	The use of REL/REV="footnote" with Anchors, versus an FN
element, is the hyperlink homolog of using CLASS="header" and
CLASS="footer" attributes in block elements, instead of adding
HEADER and FOOTER elements to the DTD (which Murray Altheim had
earlier suggested)

	HEADERS, FOOTERS, NOTES and FOOTNOTES are logical structural
components for many documents.  Since your paper included an explicit
example of using attributes instead of an element for footnotes, I'm
curious about the reasoning and criteria you feel should be applied to
the making of such choices.  My "reasoning" is that "basic structural
components" should have elements, though the "criteria" by which one
defines basic structural components may need clarification.

	This issue will become progressively more important as the
use of style sheets becomes more commonplace.  By what criteria does
one choose between attribute naming conventions versus explicit
"structural" elements?

				Fote

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Received on Wednesday, 16 October 1996 09:21:08 UTC