RE: Hyperlinks in OBJECT inclusions

> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-html-request@w3.org
> [mailto:www-html-request@w3.org]On Behalf
> Of David Perrell
> Sent: Thursday, August 20, 1998 12:09 PM
> To: Jukka Korpela
> Cc: W3C HTML Mailing List (E-mail)
> Subject: Re: Hyperlinks in OBJECT inclusions
>
>
> Jukka Korpela wrote:
>
> >Let us first formulate a question at the
> presentation-independent level:
> >Assume document A contains an OBJECT element which refers,
> via the DATA
> >attribute, to an HTML document B, which contains a link
> (say, via A HREF)
> >to a document C. Is that link from A to C or from B to C?
> >
> >Obviously, from B to C. It's difficult to find any reason to think
> >otherwise, especially with regard to the following:
> >"An embedded document is entirely independent of the
> document in which it
> >is embedded. For instance, relative URIs within the embedded document
> >resolve according to the base URI of the embedded document,
> not that of
> >the main document. An embedded document is only rendered
> within another
> >document (e.g., in a subwindow); it remains otherwise independent."
> >( http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/objects.html#h-13.5 )
> >
> >But one may still ask whether it is an acceptable _implementation of
> >links_ that when a link in an embedded document is followed, the
> >target document replaces the entire current content (the embedding
> >document).
>
> If the document is in a separate window, nested or not, it
> certainly seems
> to me that the content of the window is what should be
> replaced. To say
> otherwise argues that the nested window is not independent.

You're blurring the lines. The nested window, by definition, *cannot* be
independent of the outer window. It is a nested window, and will thus be
dependent on certain properties of the outer window(s)--as far as display is
concerned. The spec makes it clear that contained *document* should *behave*
independently of the outer document: it shouldn't inherit styles, markup
state, etc.

> Further, as you noted, the link is from B to C. In effect,
> the embedding
> document is _presenting_ the embedded document to the reader.
> The links can
> be considered extensions of the presented document.

As I pointed out in my response to Jukka, I have a problem with this
conclusion.

> The
> presenting document
> should remain when links from the presented document are followed.

This interpretation places the inclusion in a decidedly subordinate position
to the host document. I'm not convinced that this is in keeping with the
design goals of OBJECT. Consider:

host.html:
	<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0//EN">
	<HEAD>
	<TITLE>Host Document</TITLE>
	</HEAD>
	<BODY>
	<OBJECT DATA="inclusion.html" TYPE="text/html" WIDTH="320"
	HEIGHT="240"><A HREF="http://www.w3.org">We're off to see the
	wizard!</A></OBJECT>
	</BODY>

inclusion.html:
	<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0//EN">
	<HEAD>
	<TITLE>Included Document</TITLE>
	</HEAD>
	<BODY>
	<P><A HREF="http://www.w3.org">We're off to see the wizard!</A>
	</BODY>

Is it reasonable that these links should behave totally differently?

Braden

Received on Thursday, 20 August 1998 16:52:17 UTC