On Wed, 5 May 2010, Simpson, Grant Leyton wrote: > > Is there any value in adding an "href" or "uri" or similar attribute to > the <cite> element to indicate a location for a work (or information > about the work) or, in the case of a URI, an indicator that can be used > as a reference programmatically?
I don't know; is there? What would the use case be? > <q> has a "cite" attribute, so it seems to me that if we have a place to > link to further information in <q> it makes sense to do so in <cite>. To be honest, <q cite> hasn't been very successful. One could argue it is a failed experiment. :-) If it wasn't more or less harmless, I'd probably be arguing to remove it. > If it were a URI (and therefore not necessarily retrievable), it would > help in cases where the same work gets referenced in slightly different > ways: > > <p>As Ashley Crandall Amos says in <cite > uri="http://example.com/books/crandall/linguisticmeans";>Linguistic Means > of Determining the Dates of Old English Literary Texts</cite> ... Amos > also mentions in <cite > uri="http://example.com/books/crandall/linguisticmeans";>Linguistic > Means</cite></p> Works tend to have as many different URIs to reference them as titles, sometimes more. :-) On Thu, 6 May 2010, Edward O'Connor wrote: > > <cite uri> has a much worse fallback story than simply embedding a link > in <cite>. > > > <p>As Ashley Crandall Amos says in <cite > > uri="http://example.com/books/crandall/linguisticmeans";>Linguistic > > Means of Determining the Dates of Old English Literary Texts</cite> > > ... Amos also mentions in <cite > > uri="http://example.com/books/crandall/linguisticmeans";>Linguistic > > Means</cite></p> > > Consider how the above would work in legacy browsers, and then consider > how this would work in them: > > <p>As Ashley Crandall Amos says in <cite><a > href="http://example.com/books/crandall/linguisticmeans";>Linguistic > Means of Determining the Dates of Old English Literary Texts</a></cite> > ... Amos also mentions in <cite><a > href="http://example.com/books/crandall/linguisticmeans";>Linguistic > Means</a></cite></p> Using <a> does seem like it would solve this neatly without additional effort. On Thu, 6 May 2010, Schalk Neethling wrote: > > I guess this is the 'Paving the cowpaths' situation. Is there a > 'standard' where most developers do as in the sample by Ted? That's a good question; have people found this useful enough to work around the lack of an attribute here? If not, maybe there's no problem to solve in the first place. On Fri, 7 May 2010, Simpson, Grant Leyton wrote: > > 1. Referencing something in the href attributed of an <a> tag implies > that the URI will resolve to a URL, that is, that it will be accessible > on the web at that address. Not every URI is a URL, though. That's what > I was trying to do with a "uri" attribute for the <cite> tag is to > identify the resource, not necessarily link to it. Any link could be resolved; for example the browser could have a handler for isbn: links that looks up the book on Amazon or Google Books. > 2. We would have to formally define what <a> within <cite> means, > otherwise we would leave the pairing up for interpretation. Until we know that this is a problem people really want solving, that's probably ok. > 3. Are there instances where tags that can be used separately take on a > different meaning in relation to one another? I know what <li> means in > relation to <ol> and <ul>, but then again, I can't really use <li> > outside of either of those two. <a> wouldn't take on a different meaning, it would just add additional information to the page. On Sat, 8 May 2010, Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis wrote: > > I'm not opposed to adding @cite to <cite> but note that when you are > identifying a resource rather than linking to a resource, you could use > microdata or RDFa. > > For example: > > http://dev.w3.org/html5/md/#global-identifiers-for-items > > > http://rdfa.info/wiki/Rdfa-microdata-markup-comparison#Book_markup_with_ISBN_and_description Indeed, that may be a better solution in general. > > 2. We would have to formally define what <a> within <cite> means, > > otherwise we would leave the pairing up for interpretation. > > You stated that you want to "indicate a location for a work (or > information about the work)". > > A hyperlink indicates the location of an item or information about an > item, and "a href" creates a hyperlink. > > What could be the other interpretations of <cite><a href="...">Work > title</a></cite> or <a href="..."><cite>Work title</cite></a> other than > that the hyperlink locates the work or information about the work? Indeed. > > 3. Are there instances where tags that can be used separately take on > > a different meaning in relation to one another? I know what <li> > > means in relation to <ol> and <ul>, but then again, I can't really use > > <li> outside of either of those two. > > I think the combination of "cite" and "a" to indicate a work title and > the location of the work or information about the work does not involve > changing the meaning of either "cite" or "a". This is the markup > equivalent of: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_composition Right. On Mon, 10 May 2010, Simpson, Grant Leyton wrote: > > I was unaware of the Microdata spec. Now that I have seen it, I think > it offers a lot of power and flexibility. I think it should adequately > cover the use case I was thinking of. Excellent! > I'm in favor of adding a non-normative note to the section of the HTML5 > spec that discusses <cite> that demonstrates how Microdata or RDFa could > be used for this purpose. There will likely be other people like me who > read the <cite> section of the spec and think "What? I can't actually > make the citation point to something?" Do you have a suggested example of how you've ended up using this? I prefer to use real-world examples where possible for this kind of thing. -- Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
