Questions about HTML conventions

Bjoern Stabell (bjoerns@stud.cs.uit.no)
Sun, 6 Mar 1994 16:59:33 --100


Hi,

I have some questions regarding HTML conventions which I thought
I'd air here.

First, where should meta information for documents be?

Already, some information are in the MIME-headers (like
Content-type and Last-modified) but the HEAD-part of HTML
documents have some potential.

There is a trend today, it is even a recommended practice, to put
meta info like 'last updated', 'creation date', 'creator',
'modified by' and 'next document' in the body of documents. At
least Last-modified is transmitted by many http daemons in the
MIME headers and so the browser should be able to present this,
putting it in the body of the documents is superflous.

At least, it shouldn't be necessary to present a 'back to
prevoius page' button at the bottom of every page. It's not that
hard to maintain a stack of previously visited URLs in the
browser. Also, having such stuff in the document makes them less
usable in other environments (like if we incorporate a general
<INCLUDE> scheme in HTML+).

Secondly, how should <TITLE> and <H1> be used?

IMO, many use <H1> as a title just because their browser presents
the <TITLE> very anonymously - i.e., a <H1> is presented in a
larger font and thus stands more out.

Hm, I swear I had some other things on my mind too, but they
must've taken cover for the moment. :)

Bye,

-- 
Bjoern Stabell
(bjoerns@staff.cs.uit.no)