[whatwg] <link rel=icon width="" height="">

[Charles Iliya Krempeaux]

Hello,

On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 11:24 PM, Maciej Stachowiak <mjs at apple.com> wrote:

>
> On Apr 29, 2008, at 10:24 PM, Charles Iliya Krempeaux wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 10:13 PM, Maciej Stachowiak <mjs at apple.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > On Apr 29, 2008, at 6:52 PM, Ian Hickson wrote:
> >
>
> [...]
>
>
> >
> > <link type="icon" type="application/svg" sizes="any" href="whatwg.svg">
> > <link type="icon" type="image/microsoft.vnd.icon" sizes="16x16 32x32"
> > href="whatwg.ico">
> > <link type="icon" type="image/x-apple-icons" sizes="16x16 32x32 64x64
> > 128x128 256x256 512x512" href="whatwg.icns">
> > <link type="icon" type="image/png" sizes="59x60" href="whatwg.png">
> >
> >
>
> Couldn't this also be done as...
>
> <link type="icon" type="application/svg" href="whatwg.svg">
>
> <link type="icon" type="image/microsoft.vnd.icon" width="16" height="16"
> href="whatwg.ico">
> <link type="icon" type="image/microsoft.vnd.icon" width="32" height="32"
> href="whatwg.ico">
>
> <link type="icon" type="image/x-apple-icons" width="16" height="16"
> href="whatwg.icns">
> <link type="icon" type="image/x-apple-icons" width="32" height="32"
> href="whatwg.icns">
> <link type="icon" type="image/x-apple-icons" width="64" height="64"
> href="whatwg.icns">
> <link type="icon" type="image/x-apple-icons" width="128" height="128"
> href="whatwg.icns">
> <link type="icon" type="image/x-apple-icons" width="256" height="256"
> href="whatwg.icns">
> <link type="icon" type="image/x-apple-icons" width="512" height="512"
> href="whatwg.icns">
>
> <link type="icon" type="image/png" width="59" height="60"
> href="whatwg.png">
>
> Basically <link>'ing to the same "icon" more that once for each size it is
> "good" for.
>
>
> a) This may not be obvious to authors.
> b) It's more boilerplate for the author.
> c) It's more work for the UA to process (if it prefers a multisize icon it
> has to look for all icon type links and merge references to the same file).
> d) It does not distinguish between scalable icon and icon where the author
> did not specify a size (which would be all icons present in existing link
> attributes).
>
> I fail to see the advantages of this approach.
>

I don't really prefer one to the other, just considering the possibilities
we have at hand.

My current thinking is that you can go one of 2 ways.

#1: Pack everything into in <link> element.  (I.e., what you were
suggesting.) Or...
#2: Expand everything into its own <link> element.  (I.e., what I was
suggesting.)

My thinking is that... we're now considering adding width and height info
(via one or two new attributes)... but I could see this progressing to
adding other new attributes too (... perhaps in HTML5... or perhaps in
version of HTML after that).

For example... if we have width and height now... well why not info about
the number of bits used for the colors?!  Why not info about if the coloring
is palleted or not?!  Or if the image format uses lossless compression or
lossy compression?!  Or the size of the file?!  Etc....

If we have this new attribute(s) available on the <link> element, then it is
very likely going to be used for other things besides just icons.

You could use width and height for videos too.  What if video wants to be
able to "declare" that the video has "closed captioning" embedded or not?!
Or what language the video file has audio for?!  ("hreflang" would almost
work for that... if it let you specify more than one language.)  Or`what
"ratings" that version of the video is?!


What I was getting at with this suggestion is that if we start adding the
ability to specify all sorts of metadata about what's being linked to and go
along the path of #1, then we likely need to create a kind of complex
language to describe this.  (Something approaching the complexity of CSS.)
And perhaps that's complicating the <link> element too much.

Maybe it's simpler to (do #2 and) just create a <link> for each thing.


See ya

-- 
Charles Iliya Krempeaux, B.Sc.
http://ChangeLog.ca/


Vlog Razor... Vlogging News... http://vlograzor.com/
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