Re: Some Comments on the RFCs

Marco Scheurer (marco@sentenext1.epfl.ch)
Fri, 17 Feb 95 12:14:10 +0100


Websteppers,

I was the anonymous contributor. Sorry for having contributed to
the wrong mailbox. More comments...

I definitely think that no .html3 file extension or HTML3
pasteboard types are needed. The DOCTYPE comment, and the convention
to ignore unknown tags should do.

>! ! URIPboardType = "WebStep Universal Resource Identifier 1.0"
>! !
>!
>! [Can we have a] W3 prefix (W3URIPboardType)
>!
>
>Well, WebStep specifies the Ascii string, not the name of the
variable holding it.

Sure, but if you want to talk about it, document it, it would be
better to have a name everybody agrees on.

> ! URITitlePboardType = "WebStep URI Descriptive Title 1.0"
> [...]
>! If no <TITLE> is available (because for instance the destination
has not
>! been loaded), do you mean by "bookmark" the text of the anchor, ie
>! all text between the <A> and </A>?
>!
>
>No, I'd say Suggested Practice is to use the string *the user
sees*. For a title, use the "rendered Ascii", and only a few words
at that. If there's an A NAME=, use the NAME.
>

NAME= is not something the user normally sees.

It is nice to have on the pasteboard, along with the URI, a
descriptive, visible, text that can be pasted in your document.

However, there are many (non exclusive) possibilities as to what
this text can be:
- the <TITLE> of the link destination
- the "rendered ascii" of the anchor, for instance "THE Internet
Solution", if the anchor was something like <A HREF="..."><B>THE</B>
<I><Internet</I> Solution</A>. Note that in such a case it could be
nice to have also an HTML pasteboard, if you want to preserve all
information.
- the "alt text" if the anchor had an image with a descriptive "ALT="
- the "NAME="
- the "last component" of the URI

So what should we do if more than one possible text is available?

Shouldn't it be up to the app that pastes to decide what to use
(maybe with the help of the user) rather than to the app that puts
data on the pasteboard?

I think we have the following options:

1) ignore this and let the provider decide what to put on the pb.
2) specify an order of preference in the above
3) define more pasteboard types

Suggestions?

Marco