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

[Charles Iliya Krempeaux]

Hello,

On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 12:19 AM, Maciej Stachowiak <mjs at apple.com> wrote:

>
> On Apr 29, 2008, at 11:54 PM, Charles Iliya Krempeaux wrote:
>

[...]


>
> In practice, these things usually do not matter when using an icon in the
> user interface. But the sizes available do matter. I would not want to
> download a 512x512 icon for use as an iPhone homescreen icon (it's not
> anywhere near the right size) but it is irrelevant whether the compression
> is lossy or how colors are represented. I would prefer a multisize icon with
> a wide size range for Mac OS X or Windows Vista but not for Windows XP or
> most mobile platforms.



True... for an iPhone that might be the case.  Or even Mac OS X or Windows
Vista.  But it might become important in usages of this metadata beyond just
icons.

For example, consider a photo blogging example...

<link rel="enclosure" type="image/png" width="64" height="48"
compressioning="lossless" coloring="paletted" href="A.png">

<link rel="enclosure" type="image/png" width="640" height="480"
compressioning="lossless" coloring="truecolor" href="B.png">
<link rel="enclosure" type="image/png" width="640" height="480"
compressioning="lossless" coloring="grayscale" href="C.png">

<link rel="enclosure" type="image/jpeg" width="2560" height="1920"
compressioning="lossy" coloring="truecolor" href="D.jpg">


(The bottom <link> if the original image.  The 2 640x480 onews are scaled
version... one color and one grayscale.  And the top one is a thumbnail.)



>
>
> >
> > 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.
> >
>
> I'm not sure I understand this. Your proposal amounts to adding two new
> attributes to the <link> element, "width" and "height" (and possibly
> specifying a link of the same type to the same item multiple times). My
> proposal involves a single new attribute on <link>, with essentially the
> same information conveyed in a more compact way. Why does my proposal lead
> to a CSS-like general-purpose metadata language, but yours does not?
>

It leads to a CSS-like language only if we start adding more metadata in
there besides just the width and height.

For example, this...

<link rel="enclosure" type="image/xxx" width="640" height="480"
compressioning="lossy" coloring="truecolor" href="A.xxx">
<link rel="enclosure" type="image/xxx" width="1280" height="960"
compressioning="lossy" coloring="truecolor" href="A.xxx">
<link rel="enclosure" type="image/xxx" width="2560" height="1920"
compressioning="lossy" coloring="truecolor" href="A.xxx">

... could become...

<link rel="enclosure" type="image/xxx" metadata="size:640x480, 1280x960,
2560x1920; compressioning:lossy; coloring:truecolor;" href="A.xxx">

The "metadata" attribute is where you start to get a CSS-like language.
(Which seems to complicate the <link> element.)


See ya

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

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