Re: two failings of XLink

At 18:39 2002 09 27 -0400, Ann Navarro wrote:

>At 11:19 PM 9/27/2002 +0100, Jeni Tennison wrote:
>
>>I guess that I've been assuming that any URI that points to a resource
>>that should be retrieved/accessed/navigated to (as opposed to one that
>>is being used as an identifier or as a base URI for example)
>>represents a hyperlink.
>
>I don't think that's an uncommon assumption, Jeni, certainly it's one that I would make as well. If we're banging up against problems of what constitutes a hyperlink reference, let's get that sorted out now.


I wouldn't dare to be the one to try to define "hyperlink reference" 
but I too wonder if this example is within the scope of XLink.

The xlink:show attribute has values of replace, new, and embed,
where embed is explained to imply embedding only of the presentation 
so that it can be used to represent things like the <img> element 
(and personally, I have always voted not to have the embed value
as I felt it was confusing [which it clearly is] and not really
consonant with the other semantics of XLink, but that's only one
of several times in which I was in the minority on the XLink WG).  

The semantics of the show attribute indicate that XLink is meant to 
mimic the idea of what the <a> element does in HTML in browsers when
you link to another HTML document and either put it in the current
window or in a new window.  That's it.  Nothing about inclusion,
transclusion, executing scripts, or much anything else like that.

Speaking for myself only, I have no problem with anyone defining
a way to address the various uses of hyperlinking that XLink doesn't
(and, I thought, was never intended to) address.

paul

Received on Friday, 27 September 2002 19:25:51 UTC