[whatwg] link-types

Shift shift at free.fr
Sun Sep 12 03:35:32 PDT 2004


Le Sunday 12 September 2004 11:33, Anne van Kesteren a écrit :
> We probably know the from HTML 4.01[1] and I think that list should be
> extended by WHATWG for HTML 5.0. Besides extending the current list of
> values, WHATWG should define what kind of mechanism for extending the
> list of values should be used, more on that in a minute.
>
> I also think that we should change "user agents may provide access to
> linked documents through a navigation bar" to 'should', since they are
> only useful if UAs do something with it.
>
> Currently HTML 4.01[1] has defined a way of extending the link-types by
> using the PROFILE attribute on the HEAD element, this element points to
> a document which defines more link-type. In practice, this could be
> something as the XFN 1.1 meta data profile[2], developed by GMPG[3]. The
> problem is however that you don't know which link-type belongs to which
> profile. If you develop a new profile which extends or redefines a
> link-type, it becomes unclear which link-type should be used. Eric
> Scheid put up a (RFC) draft[4] regarding this issue, which is probably
> worth a look at when trying to solve this issue.
>
> I found a document[5] which lists commonly used link-types. I believe
> all of them should be included in the new specification. The
> specification should also mention when link-types are considered
> equivalent (and therefore must be implemented in the same way). For
> example: 'home', 'start' and 'top' or 'find' and 'search'.
>
> The specification should also mention that some link-types can occur
> multiple times. A typical thing could be to have multiple |rel="prev"|
> on your weblog. One points to the previous post in chronological order
> and one points to the previous post in the same category. (If they are
> the same, the UA should probably mention only 1.)
>
> The specification should also address how link-types interact with other
> attributes. For example |rel="alternate"| with HREFLANG. (Note that the
> HTML 4.01 specification is wrong saying that LANG should be used to
> point to a translation of the document.)
>
> If I missed something, please bring it up.
>
>
> [1]<http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/types.html#type-links>
> [2]<http://gmpg.org/xfn/11>
> [3]<http://gmpg.org/>
> [4]<http://protogenius.com/rel-schemas/draft-scheid-rel-schemas-00.htm>
> [5]<http://www.euronet.nl/~tekelenb/WWW/LINK/>

Hi,

I am one of the developer of the "rellinks" plugin of Konqueror (KDE browser). 
This plugin add a toolbar to manage these links : 
http://shift.freezope.org/konq_rellinks/

I already make search about the different possible values used actually in the 
link tags. I also found the similar ones. Here is the result of my search : 
http://shift.freezope.org/konq_rellinks/development_html  (The "supported" 
column is just for the status in the plugin).
For links about "link" tag and support of them in tools see 
http://shift.freezope.org/konq_rellinks/documentation_html . If you have 
other ones (tools or famous websites) it'll be great if you send them to 
me :)

I totally agree that "link" tag need specification. The important things to 
define are :
- Which relations are possible ?
- Which relations can be multiple ?
- A way to write non-standards relations (like -mozilla-opacity in CSS by 
prefixing with "-" ?) before their inclusions in the norms.
- The order of similar relations (example : 2 "top" link. First top is the 
parent or grand-parent of the page ?).
-....

This specification is important because now all the important browsers support 
this (except IE) so if the specification doesn't appear rapidly then 
developpers will used their own relation's names that will work with one 
browser but not the others. Specification can prevent this.

Franck



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