Re: comments on HTML+ discussion document

Tony Sanders ([email protected])
Mon, 01 Nov 1993 16:51:49 -0600


> 7) Re 14.7 LINK. It's not clear to me what a browser should do
> with links like REL=Previous, since a user (client) can arrive
> by many paths at a given node. I would be upset if I clicked
> on "Back" and landed not at the previous (historical) node but
> rather the one that some author thought was previous.

In addition to the logical structure built from the navigation history
HTML allows the author to define explicit relationships for organizing
large colletions of material. It's is up to the browser to present this
to the user in a clear and consistant way. For example, one might opt to
represent this information graphically (maybe this is a bit much,
but you get the idea):

Previous
\
\
Back
/ \
Preceding / \
\ / Next See also:
\ / Table of Contents
Parent--CUR--Child Document History
/ \ Previous Version
/ \ Glossary
Forward Following Index

There are three navigation modes mixed in here. Back/Forward (like
NCSA Mosaic), Previous/Back/Next (like Midas), and then the explicit
navigation tags (Preceding/Following and Parent/Child, plus the
see also's).

Or you can do what is currently done, ignore it completely (sigh).

There is more information about link relationships at:
http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/MarkUp/Relationships.html

--sanders