ForumNorway.com

[KBleivik]

XLink

XLink is XML's linking language. It is a language for embedding link information in XML documents. XLink generalizes and extends HTML's static linking model and enable users to create complex, generic, multi source / multi destination links and true hypermedia driven websites. It gives meaning to the concept of transclusion and trans copyright.

Background:
This
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8329031368429444452

video, is a great background for XLink. XLink is XML's linking model and it generalizes the static one source, one target linking model of HTML. XLink has two Link types, simple (similar to HTML links) and extended with XLink element types extended, locator, arc, resource, title.

In XLink, you can have traditional unidirectional links, generic links and multidirectional etc. This opens for a much more flexible linking model. In the future we may see this model used in more advanced web applications, e.g. advanced Web (AJAX or similar) applications. By using an OOP programming language it may be possible to write advanced classes (objects) with functionalith that goes far beyond the XMLHttpRequest Object. May be this language shall have features of multiple inheritance, generics (the ability to parametrice code - see the C++ sub forum for an example), templates, generic algorithmes and function objects etc. There may be more advanced languages then C++ like Beta to implement such functionality.

This should revolutionize web browsing and the way content is presented on the web far beyond the transclusion and hyper media model described in the video.

http://www.w3.org/TR/XMLHttpRequest/

and iFrames

http://developer.apple.com/internet/webcontent/iframe.html

technologies.

May be it will get rid of the problem with the back butten in web browsers using AJAX technologies. Pages are no longer unique, and you browser history i lost. It may be possible using XML's linking model, XLink to present the browser history as a tree or similar datastructures that are described in the first video in this thread or as spatial hypertext, jfr. Lowe and Wilde (2003) page 34.

The XLink Namespace:
To use XLink in your XML documents, you have to define an XLink namespace like this:

<ElementName xmlns:xlink="http://w3.org/1999/xlink/namespace/">

Related links:
XML Linking Language

http://www.perfectxml.com/downloads/wilde-lowe_07.pdf

Improving Web Linking Using XLink

http://www.binarything.com/binarything/openpublish/DavidLowe1.pdf

XLink in pratice

http://www.xml-finland.org/archive/xmlfinland99/slides/Arvidsson.pdf

The W3C Technical Reports and Publications side (scroll sown to XLink):

http://www.w3.org/TR/

Reccomended Book:
Dr. Erik Wilde and Dr. David Lowe (2003)
XPath, XLink, XPointer, and XML: A Practical Guide to Web Hyperlinking and Transclusion Addison Wesley ISBN: 0201703440

Dr. Erik Wilde's Home page:

http://dret.net/netdret/

David Lowe's Home page:

http://services.eng.uts.edu.au/~dbl/index.htm

Related links:
The Object-Oriented Hypermedia Design Model (OOHDM)

http://www.telemidia.puc-rio.br/oohdm/oohdm.html

http://www.iua.upf.es/~jblat/material/doctorat/students/oohdm.pdf
_________________
Kjell Gunnar Bleivik
Make it simple, as simple as possible but no simpler: | DigitalPunkt.no |