HTML 4.0 ACRONYM revision suggestion

I would like to make a suggestion on the handling of ACRONYM.

First the background:

Related DTD fragments:
---cut---
<!ENTITY % phrase "EM | STRONG | DFN | CODE |
                   SAMP | KBD | VAR | CITE | ACRONYM">

<!ELEMENT (%fontstyle;|%phrase;) - - (%inline;)*>
<!ATTLIST (%fontstyle;|%phrase;)
  %attrs;                          -- %coreattrs, %i18n, %events --
  >
---cut---

Section 10.2.1 of draft:
---cut---
The ACRONYM element allows authors to clearly indicate a sequence of
characters that compose an acronym (e.g., "NATA", "WWW", "FNAC",
"IRS", etc.). The ability to identify acronyms is useful to spell
checkers, speech synthesizers, and other user agents and tools.

The content of the ACRONYM element specifies the acronym itself. The
title attribute may be used to provide the text to which the acronym
expands. Here are some sample acronym definitions:

<ACRONYM title="World Wide Web">WWW</ACRONYM>
<ACRONYM 
   lang="fr" 
   title="Soci&eacute;t&eacute; Nationale de Chemins de Fer">
   SNCF
</ACRONYM>
---cut---


The problem I see is recurrence.  Does the author have to write out the
ACRONYM text *every* time for a speech browser?  You can't allow for
assumption on the part of the user agent.

For example:

<P><ACRONYM title="Common Gateway Interface">CGI</ACRONYM>
applications are sometimes used for <ACRONYM title="Computer Generated
Imagery">CGI</ACRONYM> work.  This is just one of the many uses for
CGI applications.</P>

OK, I know it is contrived, but I wanted to make it simple.  What does
the third 'CGI' mean?  Sure, you could expand it AGAIN, but I'd like to
propose something to avoid that.

New DTD fragment (hope I get the SGML right):

---cut---
<!ENTITY % phrase "EM | STRONG | DFN | CODE |
                   SAMP | KBD | VAR | CITE">

<!ELEMENT ACRONYM - - (%inline;)*>
<!ATTLIST ACRONYM
  %attrs;                          -- %coreattrs, %i18n, %events --
  for         IDREF      #IMPLIED  -- matches field ID value --
  >
---cut---

This would allow use as follows:

<P><ACRONYM title="Common Gateway Interface" id="cgi1">CGI</ACRONYM>
applications are sometimes used for <ACRONYM title="Computer Generated
Imagery">CGI</ACRONYM> work.  This is just one of the many uses for
<ACRONYM for="cgi1">CGI</ACRONYM> applications.</P>

Expand once, refer many.

------

Let's see if this get's silence. ;-)

-MZ
--
Livingston Enterprises - Chair, Department of Interstitial Affairs
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Received on Saturday, 27 September 1997 04:16:32 UTC