[css3-hyperlinks] inclusion of Clink in next WD

After reading the "Minutes of 16 Jan 2003 discussion on Linking in XML 
Documents" [1] referenced in the CSS3 Hyperlink Presentation Module [2], 
I wonder why Clink [3] is not included. I already read about this in the 
Opera web developer documents [4] and it is a really nice extension.

For example [5] (this is not supported by Opera):

  blockquote[cite]::after{
   margin:1em 0 0 0;
   display:block;
   content:"[Source]";
   link:url(cite); /* Opera uses '-o-link', but doesn't
                      support it on generated content [5] */
  }

This kind of syntax, CSS syntax, is very easy to understand by document 
authors. Everyone who understands the CSS syntax and reads a small 
tutorial about creating hyperlinks with CSS can use this. This, as 
opposed to XLink, which is heavily complicated and will never be adopted 
for normal web documents I think. I wonder, how one would create the 
above example using XML.

The markup is already there. The CITE attribute defines a relationship 
between the content of the BLOCKQUOTE element and the URI. The only 
thing that should be created is a clickable link. While the above syntax 
can be easily adopted in documents that are already using the ::after or 
::before pseudo-element to show the external resource:

  blockquote[cite]::after{
   content:"["attr(cite)"]";
  }

This will be impossible using a complicated XML construction.

[1] <http://www.w3.org/2003/01/16-tag-xlink>
[2] <http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-css3-hyperlinks-20040224/>
[3] <http://people.opera.com/howcome/2000/css3/clink-nov-6.html>
[4] <http://annevankesteren.nl/archives/2004/03/css-and-hyperlinks>
[5] <http://annevankesteren.nl/archives/2004/03/css-and-hyperlinks>

PS: I don't disagree with specifications like XLink, XPath etc., I'm 
just saying that one should provide easy solutions to simple problems.

-- 
 Anne van Kesteren
 <http://annevankesteren.nl/>

Received on Monday, 8 March 2004 12:59:05 UTC