Re: two failings of XLink

At 00:42 2002 09 28 +0100, Jeni Tennison wrote:
>Paul Grosso had written:
>> 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).
>
>So 'embed' is only for images? It doesn't include embedding XML or
>text? Or applets? Or movies? Where are the boundaries on what 'embed'
>is allowed to embed?

It's not for embedding any of those themselves, it's for embedding
the "result of styling the ending resource of the link."  (The XLink
spec leaves it vague just how to interpret this--the vagueness
here is another reason I voted against this value.)  

Here is the description of the embed value
(quoting part of http://www.w3.org/TR/xlink/#show-att ):

 embed

  An application traversing to the ending resource should load its
  presentation in place of the presentation of the starting resource.
  This is similar to the effect achieved by the following HTML fragment:

       <IMG SRC="http://www.example.org/smiley.gif" ALT=":-)">

  The presentation of the starting resource typically does not consist
  of an entire document; it would be the entire document only when the root
  element of the document is a simple link. Thus, embedding typically has
  an effect distinct from replacing.

  Just as for the HTML IMG element, embedding affects only the presentation
  of the relevant resources; it does not dictate permanent transformation of
  the starting resource. Put another way, when an embedded XLink is processed,
  the result of styling the ending resource of the link is merged into the
  result of styling the resource into which it is embedded. By contrast, when
  a construct such as an XInclude element [XInclude] is resolved, the original
  XML is actually transformed to include the referenced content.


paul

Received on Friday, 27 September 2002 20:06:08 UTC