Cleanest way of making some minor additions to XHTML?

Hello;

I'm looking to add a few tags to XHTML for a particular device which has
buttons down the side of the screen, and I wanted those buttons to be
programmable to go to particular links when you press them, as well as
adding a visual cue to the browser when this has occurred.

My initial thoughts were just to add attributes to the <a> tag, i.e.

<a href="go.html" sidebutton="1" sidetext="Go">
<a href="stop.html" sidebutton="1" sidetext="Stop">

Now the browser (NetClue) throws these extra attributes away when it
parses a document claiming to XHTML 1.0 compliant, presumably as it
should, and once the page is rendered I cannot find them in the DOM from
my program's code.  Assuming this is because they're not specified in the
DTD, should I copy the XHTML 1.0 DTD wholesale and add those tags as being
valid?  Then of course the xml pages for my device aren't recognised as
XHTML any more because the DTD is a local one.  Or can somebody guide me
through the practicalities of telling the browser to extend or selectively
override a DTD, while still keeping my pages as recognisable XHTML?

I've found a little documentation on w3.org about this, specifically to do
with namespaces and XHTML modularization, but no concrete examples as to
how I could go about my task, and whether any particular software support
is required.

thanks,

-- 
Matthew       > http://www.soup-kitchen.net/
              > ICQ 19482073

Received on Wednesday, 23 January 2002 01:37:17 UTC