Re: The REAL proposal for addition to HTML 3.0: EMBED

Daniel W. Connolly ([email protected])
Wed, 20 Sep 1995 09:43:19 -0400


In message <[email protected]>, Alex Edelstein writes:
>Description
>
>EMBED is a container that allows the insertion of arbitrary objects directly
>into an HTML page. Embedded objects are supported by application-specific
>plug-ins.

You mentioned that you'll submit these specs as internet drafts once
you've got ELEMENT and ATTLIST declarations figured out. I'm willing
to help. But...

>EMBED can take arbitrary attributes.

I believe this is not expressible in SGML. To write the DTD, we have
to know the list of possible attribute names. This issue came up
in discussion of the APP element as well. (Dan surfs the archive...)
Ah! Terry Allen crossposted something from the Java List:

http://www.acl.lanl.gov/HTML_WG/html-wg-95q2.messages/1119.html
*** DTD ***
|
| <!ELEMENT APPLET - - (PARAM*, DATA?, %flow)>
| <!ATTLIST APPLET
| CLASS NAME #REQUIRED -- the class name --
| NAME CDATA #IMPLIED -- the applet name --
| LANG NAME #IMPLIED -- the language name --
| SRC CDATA #IMPLIED -- source URL --
| WIDTH NUMBER #REQUIRED
| HEIGHT NUMBER #REQUIRED
| ALIGN (left|right|top|texttop|middle|
| absmiddle|baseline|bottom|absbottom) baseline
| VSPACE NUMBER #IMPLIED
| HSPACE NUMBER #IMPLIED
| >

|
| <!ELEMENT PARAM - O EMPTY>
| <!ATTLIST PARAM
| NAME NAME #REQUIRED -- The name of the parameter --
| VALUE CDATA #IMPLIED -- The value of the parameter --
| >
| <!ELEMENT DATA - - CDATA>

>The following general attributes are defined on EMBED:
>SRC (required) - Specifies source URL.
>
>HEIGHT - The object's image will be scaled to fit the specified height
>and width.
>
>WIDTH - The object's image will be scaled to fit the specified height
>and width.

OK... so now we've got:

<!ATTLIST EMBED
SRC CDATA #REQUIRED
HEIGHT NUMBER #IMPLIED
WIDTH NUMBER #IMPLIED
>

>NOEMBED - The EMBED container can contain a NOEMBED container, the contents of

I gather this is a description of the content model of the NOEMBED
element. It's not quite enough detail for me to write an ELEMENT
declaration: could you sketch the content of EMBED and NOEMBED in some
notation that you're familiar with, like yacc or BNF?

Dan

p.s. Mark Gaither: you wanna start hacking up a DTD to describe these
extensions and stick it on the validation service so everybody can try
them out? I know you're busy... if you're too busy, is there anybody
else who runs a clone of the validation service who wants to try
it out?

Maybe I'll get a clone running on www.w3.org. I need to do that
for the conformance testing anyway.