dir attribute in LINK

I just noticed that HTML 4.0 includes attributes 'hreflang'
and 'charset'.

I think that 'hreflang' and 'charset' should be replaced with
a more general 'href-features' mechanism that would allow
for a more complete description of 'features of the target'.

The justification for 'hreflang' and 'charset' applies to any
other media feature, e.g., there's no point in retrieving an
audio link on a device that doesn't have a speaker. Rather than
invent new attributes for every kind of media feature, couldn't
we just identify/include the feature profile of the target?

Now, it's too late to do this for HTML 4.0 or for XHTML 1.0,
but perhaps we could revisit this for the next XHTML version?

Larry
-- 
http://www.parc.xerox.com/masinter


> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-international-request@w3.org
> [mailto:www-international-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Martin J. Duerst
> Sent: Thursday, August 05, 1999 7:45 PM
> To: Nir Dagan
> Cc: www-html@w3.org; www-international@w3.org
> Subject: Re: [Moderator Action] dir attribute in LINK
> 
> 
> Hello Nir,
> 
> Thanks for digging this up. I will forward it to the
> HTML WG.
> 
> At 05:20 99/08/05 -0400, Nir Dagan wrote:
> > 
> > The HTML4.0 spec. [1] suggests that the dir attribute in LINK 
> > refers to the directionality of the linked resource.
> > This is very different from the lang attribute that refers to the
> > language of the title attribute (and hreflang refers to that
> > of the linked resource)
> > 
> > It seems to me that 
> > 
> > 1. It would make more sense that dir would refer to the title 
> > attribute's directionality.
> 
> Yes indeed, like DIR everywhere else.
> 
> > 2. In order to refer to directionality of linked resources 
> >  we need a new attribute, e.g., hrefdir
> 
> i don't think this is needed. 'hreflang' and 'charset' are
> very helpful because they help selecting the right link and
> can provide information that may not be in the target document.
> But my guess is that 'dir' is always used in the target document
> (otherwise, it won't be readable), and therefore, it's not needed
> on link.
> 
> Regards,  Martin.
> 
> > 3. It is not clear from the description[2] of dir whether it
> > actually affects attribute values (such as title, alt in IMG
> > etc.) I think it should.
> > 
> > [1]
> > In  
> > http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/links.html#edef-LINK
> > we find:
> > 
> > "...Note the use of the dir and charset attributes for the Arabic
> > manual
> > ...
> > <LINK title="The manual in Arabic"
> >       dir="rtl"
> >       type="text/html"
> >       rel="alternate"
> >       charset="ISO-8859-6"
> >       hreflang="ar" 
> >       href="http://someplace.com/manual/arabic.html">
> > ..."
> > 
> > [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/dirlang.html#h-8.2
> > 
> > Nir Dagan
> > 
> > http://www.nirdagan.com
> > mailto:nir@nirdagan.com
> > tel:+972-2-588-3143
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
> #-#-#  Martin J. Du"rst, World Wide Web Consortium
> #-#-#  mailto:duerst@w3.org   http://www.w3.org
> 
>

Received on Tuesday, 10 August 1999 02:00:18 UTC