Using CSS to make XML links

[John Hascall]

One can (leaving aside for now if one should) use CSS to make an XML
document render is some sort of eye-friendly way. Supposing this XML
contained elements which one would like to have be treated as hyper
links in the browser.

For example, the document
http://www.aboyandhiscomputer.com/blog_rss2.xml contains elements of
the form: <link>url-goes-here</link> in it. Now, obviously, you can
use CSS to (visually) format "link"s as one sees fit. But is there
anyway to tell the browser that the content of the link container
really IS a link and it would be oh so swell if it treated it
something akin to <a href="url-goes-here">url-goes-here</a>?

Thanks,
John

[Christoph Paeper]

John Hascall <jo**@iastate.edu>:

<link>url-goes-here</link> (...) is there anyway to tell the browser
that the content of the link container really IS a link and it would be
oh so swell if it treated it something akin to <a
href="url-goes-here">url-goes-here</a>?

Not in official CSS and neither in the public drafts AFAIR (most of the
W3C seems to prefer HLink or XLink), but Opera 7 proprietarily supports
something like this: <http://www.opera.com/docs/specs/#xml-css-link>. The
URI has to be taken from an attribute, not the element content. That's
usually the best design decision anyway.

If not hardcoded, Opera's internal XHTML stylesheet would probably have
something like this:

a[href] {-o-link: attr(href); -o-link-source: current;}
img[src] {-o-replace: attr(src);}

I don't know whether the respective pseudo-classes :link and :visited will
correctly work with this.

I think this vendor-specific approach is pretty straight forward, although
probably leaving the original scope of CSS.

--
Marvin: "It gives me a headache just trying to think down to your level."

(The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

[Martin Honnen]

John Hascall wrote:

For example, the document
http://www.aboyandhiscomputer.com/blog_rss2.xml contains elements of
the form: <link>url-goes-here</link> in it. Now, obviously, you can
use CSS to (visually) format "link"s as one sees fit. But is there
anyway to tell the browser that the content of the link container
really IS a link and it would be oh so swell if it treated it
something akin to <a href="url-goes-here">url-goes-here</a>?

You can use XLinks for Mozilla:
<link xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
xlink:href="url-goes-here"
xlink:type="simple">url-goes-here</link>
Not a CSS solution obviously but whether something is a link or not is
not a question of presentation but of semantics.

--

Martin Honnen
http://JavaScript.FAQTs.com/

[Christoph Paeper]

Martin Honnen <ma*******@yahoo.de>:

whether something is a link or not is not a question of presentation but
of semantics.

Yes, and as such it should be able to be described in a good "document
type description language" (like IDs). XML DTDs don't provide such a basic
feature AFAIK, so they came up with XLink which clutters the source due to
its namespace alone.

--
Reality is an illusion that occurs due to the lack of alcohol.

[John Hascall]

Martin Honnen <ma*******@yahoo.de> wrote in message news:<41***********************@newsread4.arcor-online.net>...

John Hascall wrote:

For example, the document
http://www.aboyandhiscomputer.com/blog_rss2.xml contains elements of
the form: <link>url-goes-here</link> in it. Now, obviously, you can
use CSS to (visually) format "link"s as one sees fit. But is there
anyway to tell the browser that the content of the link container
really IS a link and it would be oh so swell if it treated it
something akin to <a href="url-goes-here">url-goes-here</a>?

You can use XLinks for Mozilla:
<link xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
xlink:href="url-goes-here"
xlink:type="simple">url-goes-here</link>
Not a CSS solution obviously but whether something is a link or not is
not a question of presentation but of semantics.

Thanks. That looks perfectly horrid, but thanks for the pointer.

John