24 Dec
2008
24 Dec
'08
1:04 p.m.
> I wish that I knew a good way in HTML to express
offsets from beginning
> of a document.
On Wed, 24 Dec 2008, Mike Hatch wrote:
It is a variant of the <a href= tag
To another page it would be <a href="pagename.htm">, for a position in
that
page it would be <a href="pagename.htm#position">, where
'position' is a tag
in that page <a name="position">.
Yes, you can ADD 'position's to get a form of symbolic labeling.
That is a very useful feature for identifying positions within your own
files. (Although it left a bit to be desired when implementing full
indices. That is only for before-the-fact access.
I don't own every website that I reference. In some of my indexing
projects, instead of storing both a URL AND a file offset, I would like
a URL that dereferences to an offset within the file, such as
"notice the wording where he says 'xxx' (684 bytes into that file)".
http://www.foo.bar/RFC.html*684
(where '*' is some unique punctuation provided for in the HTML spec)
"Dear webmaster, is that a type at xxxx.html/*yyy ?"
Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, the current implementations of HTML
(and SGML?) do not provide an "offset" operator. If I am wrong, please
tell me! It took me weeks to find <pre></pre> to be able to do
non-proportional ASCII art, and to be able to create websites that discuss
HTML.
Inclusion of an "offset operator" would permit handing a URL to somebody
and having THEIR browser take them to the desired location within the
file, WITHOUT edit rights to the file.
It would permit creating an index to a document WITHOUT requiring
annotation of the original, nor captive environment for display.
The pointers within the index could then be actual access URLs
"RFC.html*684" or http://www.foo.bar/RFC.html*684
I do not like providing a proprietary viewer that must be used to be able
to see the referenced items within the file.
BTW, I do NOT see variations in word size or character set, as being
relevant.