[Whatwg] Request for HTML-only print link

[Křištof Želechovski]

The acronym URL expands to "Uniform Resource *Locator*".  The string
"print:#" does not match this spec: it is not a locator, it is a processing
instruction.  BTW, the full form of the local URL "#" can be viewed as
"html:#" (whether it is allowed by the URL standard or not) which means that
you need a URL to access the resource you want to print; prefixing it with
"print:" would result in a double URL scheme, which is unacceptable.
Therefore it is better to use a special target, if any.

Moreover, as has already been noted, the http URL scheme does not allow
specifying document fragments except in CGI arguments, which is an
absolutely server-side unspecified thing.  And the details like paper sort,
size, texture and stationery, print mode and quality, the order of pages and
many other things I do not know about, if they are essential, still have to
be explained verbally to the viewer, so the gain is minimal.  And if you
tell me such things are never essential, I shall respond that printing is an
obsolete practice that is harmful to the environment and should be
deprecated and not recommended, except for the cases were a written
signature is needed, which is hopefully becoming obsolete as well.

Chis

 

-----Original Message-----
From: whatwg-bounces at lists.whatwg.org
[mailto:whatwg-bounces at lists.whatwg.org] On Behalf Of Sander
Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2007 5:23 AM
To: whatwg at whatwg.org
Subject: [Whatwg] Request for HTML-only print link

 

Hello,

I'm not sure whether this has been requested before, but the link to the
archives of this list seems to be broken at the moment, so I give it a
try...

I'd like to see an extension of the hyperlink to give it an HTML-only print
function. Nowadays making a print link available from within a website
always involves client-side scripting. This dependency should not be
necessary for something like printing as it is basic functionality in most
browsers (not sure about mobile devices though).

I can think of two ways, using existing attributes:
- target="_print"
- using some sort of pseudo-protocol: href="print:#"

In both cases the URL of the href attribute could lead to another document,
which is probably not what the visitor wants, but this is also possible with
the current technique. I'm not sure whether this is a good thing or not.
In addition, linking to a node inside the document could be used to only
print that node (#content).

My personal favorite would be the pseudo-protocol as I think this function
is more inline with that of the email link.

cheers,
Sander

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/attachments/20070728/94510160/attachment-0001.htm>