In the beginning this site was just a quick compilation of
links that I found upon the topic. AFAIK now this has become
the complete list of public documents of relevance for the
use of the <link rel="..."> tag for
navigation.
'link' is also used for connecting external
stylesheets and (bookmark) icons. Maybe I will include that
stuff later.
- For German readers:
- Es gibt auch eine deutsche Version dieses Dokuments.
HTML Specifications
- Modularization of XHTML - XHTML Abstract
Modules - 5.19. Link Module
- XHTML 1.1 refers to a special module to define the
'link'-Element in an own DTD. The LinkTypes are a data type on their
own.
- User's Guide to ISO/IEC 15445:2000(E)
ISO-HTML - 13.20 The LINK element type—Interdocument
relations
- HTML 4.01 Specification - 6.12 Link
types
- HTML 4.01 Specification - 12.3 Document
relationships: the LINK element
- HTML 4.01 Specification - 21 Document Type
Definition - LinkTypes
- HTML 3.2 Reference Specification - The HEAD
element - LINK
- Hypertext Markup Language - 2.0 - Document
Structure - Link: LINK
- Hypertext Links in HTML - IETF - INTERNET
DRAFT
- (December 1995) expired long ago. Anyway it was
discussed a lot and is even cited in
the DTD for HTML 3.2)
References, Tutorials, Discussion
- Navigating the WWW - The
Link-Element
- this article shows how systematical use of the
'link' element might improve web navigation -
if browser support for it where better... Best
introduction for web-autors I know!
- W3C: Use <link>s
in your document
- One of the 17 most important Quality Tips for
Webmasters.
- WDG: LINK - Document
Relationship
- this is a complete, nevertheless
well-understandable explanation of the HTML 4
specification (including additional links to other
sources).
- SELFHTML: HTML/XHTML /
HTML-Kopfdaten / Logische Beziehungen
- SelfHTML is a well known tutorial in German
language.
- LINK - Site structure
- from the WDG's
HTML 3.2 reference
- LINK - relationships with other
documents
- from Learning HTML 3.2 by Examples by
Jukka Korpela
- Index DOT Html: LINK
- part of Brian Wilson's THE Advanced HTML
Resource
- Alphabetical Index of Link Types
- Fantasai collected and gathered all occurences of
Link Type Definitions in released specs and
old working drafts. Seems to be rather complete.
- SGML and HTML Explained - Chapter 13
- this is HTML explained from the SGML view
-
LINK Element | LINK Object
- part of the msdn online Web Workshop.
- Data hidden in attributes
- Jukka Korpela discusses the implications of 'LINK' as
an empty element in Empty elements in SGML, HTML,
XML, and XHTML.
- Proposals
to extend/restrict >LINK<
- nowadays rather historical, but gives some insight to
what the HTML developers intended the LINK element to mean
(discussion from summer 1995)
Browser Support
Matthias
Gutfeldt
wrote another web page on the topic: Browsers with
LINK support.
iCab
After years without new implementations the independent
Mac browser iCab brang the link element back to our
attention. Thus it became an example for developing the
feature in Mozilla an Opera.
- iCab Homepage
- iCab FAQ
- provides the full list of values that are assigned to
the icons in in iCab's Standard Links toolbar
- Navigating the WWW - The
Link-Element
- iCab is the outstanding example in this general
introduction.
- iCab: New Browser With Structural
Navigation
- Jakob Nielsen enthusiasticly promotes for the new
navigation capabilities iCab provides (some points he
criticizes have been improved in later releases).
- iCab
screenshot of Ian Hickson's test page.
Mozilla
On 2001-10-02 the link toolbar landed in
Mozilla's code tree. Since that day all nightly builds are
able to provide site navigation by an additional toolbar - if
the site provides the needed information by the link
element.
Currently (2001-11-14) not all technical and design
problems are solved but work is done on them. There may be
changes in the design, but the main funcionality will
consist.
The first release for a broader audience was milestone Mozilla 0.9.5. If the worst known
bugs get fixed in time Netscape is supposed to integrate the
link toolbar starting with version 6.3
of their browser. It is still an open question (although
extremely important for wide acceptance) if they will enable
it by default.
For those who don't have access to a current version of
Mozilla here is a screenshot.
The biggest part of the allmost three year lasting
developement is documented in bugzilla, mozilla.org's
bug-tracking system. Design principles and first
implementation details where worked out in Bug 2800 - No UI for HTML2 "LINK"
element and Bug 87428 - No UI HTML <link> element.
Some of the discussions are worth reading even if you are not
interested in Mozilla.
Since the link toolbar became an
official part of Mozilla dozends of improvements have been
suggested. Get a list in Bug 103053 - Link Toolbar Improvements
Tracking!
Some more interesting documents from the
pre-implementation phase:
- Link Toolbar and <LINK> in Mozilla
- Two pages about early implementations.
- Tim Hill
- http://www.prismelite.com/linktag.txt
- Ian Hickson:
- http://www.bath.ac.uk/~Epy8ieh/internet/discussion/linkelement.txt
- http://www.bath.ac.uk/~Epy8ieh/internet/discussion/metadata.txt
- http://www.bath.ac.uk/~Epy8ieh/internet/discussion/linkspec.txt
- Link - 1 | Link - 2 - two test sites
- http://www.home.zonnet.nl/p.duijm/ami/download/ami-features.txt
- AMI - 'Alternative Menu Initiative' (2000-08-24)
Opera
The Mac team were the first to support link navigation at Opera's (since Version 5.0b4 for MacOS).
By now the feature has reched the main core of the source and each current version offers a navigatin tollbar, when needed. Contrary to other implementations it reacts only to a fixed set of keywordes and ignores the rest.
- Opera
screenshot
- more current screenshot by Matthias Gutfeld
Lynx
- Lynx Home
Page
- Lynx source code
-
I have not found any public documentation that explains
which values for
<link rel="..."> this
browser supports. But Alan J.
Flavell explained in a
ciwah
posting how you can easily look this up in the
program's sources on your own:
Go to http://lynx.isc.org/current/lynx2-8-4/src/HTML.c
and search for the first appearance of
HTML_LINK_REL
Scroll down a couple of screens and you'll find a list
of supported values, with a few lines of comment
explaining why.
- Lynx
Screenshot
UdiWWW
Development of this browser ended after the release of
version 1.2 in 1996.
This Browser still works well on Windows systems. Because
of new extensions to the http protocol you need to use a
proxy server with it for most current websites.
- UdiWWW
- mirror of the homepage (the original site is down)
- UdiWWW - Stroud's
CWSApps
- comments and download area
-
LEO - Link Everything Online
- this page contains all versions that have been
released
- Experiences
with UdiWWW
- a user's comments
- UdiWWW
screenshot
NCSA Win Mosaic 3
The Mosaic Project ended in january, 1997.
This Browser still works well on Windows systems. Because
of new extensions to the http protocol you need to use a
proxy server with it for most current websites.
- NCSA
Windows Mosaic Home Page
-
The Link Tag - Mosaic 3.0 only
- from HTML Writer's Guide and Mosaic
Specification
- Mosaic
screenshot
emacs-w3
This extension to the editor emacs makes it act as a
full-featured webbrowser. It offers a menu item "Navigate"
and keybord shortcuts for REL="prev" and
REL="next".
- emacs-w3
Homepage
- emacs-w3
screenshot
- thanks to Toby
Speight for sending it, using one of his own sites for
an example!
- emacs-w3
screenshot of this site
CAB (for Atari)
- Description and a screenshot on Matthias
Gutfeldt's page: Browsers with
LINK support
AOLpress
I have been told that this browser/web-editor combination
uses Link for navigation. I haven't done any testing yet.
- AOLpress
Homepage
- screenshot at Matthias Gutfeldt's
Internet Explorer
News in 2004: Users of M$-Windows & Internet Explorer
can update their Browser to understand a bit more of
HTML:
- <LINK>
Navigation Bar for Internet Explorer
Netscape 7, Mozilla Firefox etc.
Some Browsers based upon the Mozilla project lack the link
toolbar. Given Mozilla's modularity you can install it on
your own:
- Install
the Link Toolbar
JavaScript/DOM
Some people try to use JavaScript and the DOM to read the
attribute values of 'rel' and 'rev' in the 'link'-element and
make them accessible to the user.
- A Script to show the Link-Elements' content inside the
content area of a website (New in
(2004-03-30)
- Stefan Born deals with enhancing the user experience
upon semantically rich HTML by JavaScript. One of his
projects is a script that parses the link-elements ans
shows them with the content of the site.
- My comment: It gives link-naviigation to the gaming web
authors again. No more standard interface for the lost
users. OTOH dealing whith that stuff doesn't harm anybody
and maybe it helps to evangelise for better HTML and the
use of link navigation.
- The other links in this category may be obsolete in
2004. They remain for completeness.
- Jim Ley posted a simple script in the newsgroup uk.net.web.authoring:
-
javascript:LE=document.getElementsByTagName('LINK');
Str='<UL>'; for(i=0;i<LE.length;i++)
Str+='<LI><A
href="'+LE[i].href+'">'+LE[i].rel+'</A>';
document.body.innerHTML=Str+document.body.innerHTML;
void 0;
- Adding features to Internet Explorer
- Jim Ley also developed a solution to add link
navigation as a new toolbar in Internet Explorer (Windows)
using an Active X controll.
- MS Web Accessories for IE5
- Alan Flavell proposes to use Microsoft's IE5Tools for
the same purpose.
- Programming
the Link Element
- another idea is published by "The
SiteExperts.Community" in their book Inside Dynamic
HTML - Microsoft Programmers Series
Finally...
Please feel free to contact me with critics, additional
information and more links!
