proper use of "link rel="?

[Dave Patton]

Discussions in another thread, about the use of multiple
"Top" links on a page prompted me to redo a page of mine:
http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/mapcompare.html
was changed to:
http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/mapcompareX.html
Part of the changes were as the result of some comments
by Alan J. Flavell :-)

Is the use of the links in the head of the document valid?
I'm using Mozilla 1.3, and they make sense to me for its
site navigation bar, but:
- I couldn't find a cross-reference of the rel attributes
to the 'navigation bar' buttons that covered a variety
of browsers
- my use of rel="start" to go to the top of the current
page makes sense to me, given the nature of the page
in relation to the rest of the site, and that Mozilla
labels the associated button "Top", but I suspect that
when viewed in other browsers it "isn't right"

Any comments, about the above or other aspects of the page,
are welcome. Thanks.

--
Dave Patton
Canadian Coordinator, the Degree Confluence Project
http://www.confluence.org dpatton at confluence dot org
My website: http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/
Vancouver/Whistler - host of the 2010 Winter Olympics

[Alan J. Flavell]

On Mon, Jul 7, Dave Patton inscribed on the eternal scroll:

Is the use of the links in the head of the document valid?
W3 sketches-out one list at
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/types.html#h-6.12

There have been several earlier drafts, too. The source code of Lynx
contains the most comprehensive list I've met ;-) , it's now at
http://lynx.isc.org/current/lynx2-8-5/src/HTML.c
I'm using Mozilla 1.3, and they make sense to me for its
site navigation bar, but: - my use of rel="start" to go to the top of the current
page makes sense to me, given the nature of the page
in relation to the rest of the site, and that Mozilla
labels the associated button "Top", but I suspect that
when viewed in other browsers it "isn't right"

I've understood "Top" to be intended in the past for a link to the
topmost page of a particular site or hierarchy - but that's now called
"Start" (and Moz treats them as equivalent, as you spotted).

Google fairly easily locates some useful discussions. Some I was
aware of already, e.g http://www.subotnik.net/html/link which I'd
recommend, seeing that you're showing an interest ;-)

hope that helps.

[Matthias Gutfeldt]

Dave Patton wrote:

"Alan J. Flavell" <fl*****@mail.cern.ch> wrote in

W3 sketches-out one list at
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/types.html#h-6.12

Google fairly easily locates some useful discussions. Some I was
aware of already, e.g http://www.subotnik.net/html/link which I'd
recommend, seeing that you're showing an interest ;-)

Thanks - I'll bookmark that last link, but a quick look there
doesn't seem to show what I was hoping for - a list of the
"right values" to use when specifying link rel= or rev=, to
interoperate in the best way amongst the browsers that support link.
It's not a big deal to me, so I'll probably just use what I
have done so far, unless someone points out some errors/flaws :-)

The W3C recommendation doesn't provide a definite list of "right
values". I guess this means that for practical purposes, the "right
values" are whatever current browser implementations support (which is
pretty much the case with all W3C recommendations, eh).

A list of browsers that support LINK is here:
<http://gutfeldt.ch/matthias/translation/LINK/ENaddendum.html>.

Individual browser documentation is sketchy (Opera doesn't say much
beyond "we got it" here:
<http://www.opera.com/features/navbar/index.dml>), but IIRC they mostly
follow what's available in the W3C recommendation mentioned above.
Matthias

[Steve Fulton]

Matthias Gutfeldt wrote:

Individual browser documentation is sketchy (Opera doesn't say much
beyond "we got it" here:
<http://www.opera.com/features/navbar/index.dml>), but IIRC they mostly
follow what's available in the W3C recommendation mentioned above.

Opera's support for links is broken. It doesn't treat rel as a space-delimited
list. For example, if a document (presumably second in a list) contains

<link rel="first prev" href="first.html">

Opera recognizes neither "first" nor "prev".

--
Steve

We would often be ashamed of our finest actions if the world understood all the
motives which produced them. -Duc de La Rochefoucauld

[Steve Pugh]

"Steve Fulton" <ce********@hotmail.com> wrote:

Matthias Gutfeldt wrote:

Individual browser documentation is sketchy (Opera doesn't say much
beyond "we got it" here:
<http://www.opera.com/features/navbar/index.dml>), but IIRC they mostly
follow what's available in the W3C recommendation mentioned above.

By default Opera supports the following:

home, top, start
index
contents, toc
search, find
glossary
help
first, begin
previous, prev
next
end, last
up
copyright
author

Those grouped together are treated as being identical. The first
listed is preferred. So if you have both a rel="home" and a rel="top"
then the rel="home" will be displayed.

If Opera encounters multiple <link>s with the same value for rel then
it will use the first encountered.

It does not by default support the following from HTML 4 -
alternate
appendix
bookmark
chapter
section
subsection

Nor does it support parent/child/sibling (not even in the Mozilla
fashion of mapping parent to up and child to next).

Note that Opera can be made to support any link type by editing an ini
file. But the limitation on multiple <link>s with the same rel value
means that there is little point in a user adding support for any of
the above.
Opera's support for links is broken. It doesn't treat rel as a space-delimited
list. For example, if a document (presumably second in a list) contains

<link rel="first prev" href="first.html">

Opera recognizes neither "first" nor "prev".

Also, Opera (up to 7.2b1) doesn't recognise fragment identifiers in
<link>URIs. So page.html#foo just goes to page.html.

Steve

--
"My theories appal you, my heresies outrage you,
I never answer letters and you don't like my tie." - The Doctor

Steve Pugh <st***@pugh.net> <http://steve.pugh.net/>

[Stephen Poley]

On Mon, 07 Jul 2003 21:27:57 GMT, Dave Patton
<dp*****@remove-for-nospam.confluence.org> wrote:

- I couldn't find a cross-reference of the rel attributes
to the 'navigation bar' buttons that covered a variety
of browsers
Good timing! I was playing with this yesterday, and was about to ask the
same question. Some useful URLs have come up.
- my use of rel="start" to go to the top of the current
page makes sense to me, given the nature of the page
in relation to the rest of the site, and that Mozilla
labels the associated button "Top", but I suspect that
when viewed in other browsers it "isn't right"

It seems to me that "start" would mean the first of a series of pages
which represent something in a logical order. So if you have the
chapters of a novel, one to a page, "start" would link to chapter 1.

I was wondering about the Author link in Opera. The W3C don't seem to
recognise this one. I suppose the idea was to link to a (brief)
autobiography. However, given that not many people can really be that
interested in my autobiography, I wondered if it was sensible to use it
to link to a "Contact the author" page.

--
Stephen Poley

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/

[Tim]

On Mon, 07 Jul 2003 21:27:57 GMT,
Dave Patton <dp*****@remove-for-nospam.confluence.org> wrote:

- I couldn't find a cross-reference of the rel attributes
to the 'navigation bar' buttons that covered a variety
of browsers
What seems like a good idea (links), has suffered from not having some
good organisation, in the first place.
- my use of rel="start" to go to the top of the current
page makes sense to me, given the nature of the page
in relation to the rest of the site, and that Mozilla
labels the associated button "Top", but I suspect that
when viewed in other browsers it "isn't right"

On Tue, 08 Jul 2003 19:31:31 +0200,
Stephen Poley <sb*****@xs4all.nl> wrote:
It seems to me that "start" would mean the first of a series of pages
which represent something in a logical order. So if you have the
chapters of a novel, one to a page, "start" would link to chapter 1.
I've always used a start page as the beginning of a section. Whether
that be a chapter, topic, or whatever. Based on the way I lay out
directories on the server.

Trying to work out what to use to back to the home page, versus the
beginning of a multi-section document, isn't too clear. It would seem
to be "top" to go to the top of document set; and "up," to go up the
directory tree to a parent (e.g. the homepage).

e.g. With this sort of structure. <-- a place to go "up" to
/home/
/home/example/pageone <-- a starting point / top of section
/home/example/pagetwo
/home/somethingelse/pageone <-- a starting point / top of section
/home/somethingelse/pagetwo
I was wondering about the Author link in Opera. The W3C don't seem to
recognise this one. I suppose the idea was to link to a (brief)
autobiography. However, given that not many people can really be that
interested in my autobiography, I wondered if it was sensible to use it
to link to a "Contact the author" page.

From what I've seen of pages using it, author is commonly a mailto: link
to the author. Though there's no reason why it can't lead to a page
about the author (probably more sensible). I'd read it as authoring
information, of some sort.

--
My "from" address is totally fake. (Hint: If I wanted e-mails from
complete strangers, I'd have put a real one, there.) Reply to usenet
postings in the same place as you read the message you're replying to.