Re: icons for pages/sites/etc. (was Re: src attribute of IFRAME and FRAME)

Tantek Celik wrote:
| 
| From: fantasai <fantasai@escape.com>
 | 
 | > | On another note, since an "icon" for a page is purely presentational,
 | > | this really should be done with CSS instead
 | >
 | > An icon is purely presentation only insofar as any media object is
 | > purely presentational.
 | 
 | Not true.  More like, an icon is purely presentation insofar as a
 | background-image in a document is purely presentation.  Both are external
 | media resources not necessary for and thus separate from the core
 | "content/semantics" of the document.
 |
 | >                        It is a symbolic representation of the document
 | > and is therefore an associated resource, not a stylistic attribute. 
 | >
 | > Defined as such, the icon doesn't even need to be visual--one could
...
 | "Audio icons" are in use all over the place, though they are usually called
 | "audio cues" instead.

An audio cue is used to indicate what's going on at a given
point in the page--an end cue, for example. It can be used to
embellish an aural presentation much the way a horizontal rule
decorates a visual display. It's nothing more than a way of
presenting semantics coded into the markup; of itself, it is
purely presentational. While a cue may represent the start of
a page, it doesn't represent the page itself.

A background image, even if unique to a page, is related to
the document only as a presentational effect. It is explicitly
defined to be the background and nothing else.

However, with an icon of the sort we're discussing there are
no requirements or restrictions on its use. A UA may use it
for shortcuts, bookmarks, the window icon, or anything else it
chooses. *The presentation is undefined; only the relationship
is given.* As with rel="next", the UA is free to exploit that
knowledge as it sees fit.

<link> was defined to express relationships between the
document as a whole and a linked resource. Why should it
not be used for the document-to-icon relationship as well?
We are telling the UA why this image is related, not how to
use it. Should this semantic relationship really be written
in CSS, a language, if I recall correctly, designed purely
to define presentation?

Received on Monday, 10 December 2001 19:47:32 UTC