The World Wide Web was conceived by the acedemic community for use by their peers to exchange information. Remember, the DARPA net was originally a closed network. The <link> tag was conceived to allow large documents to be broken down and handled by chapters or other smaller chunks. Many of the attributes here are designed for that specific purpose -- the handling of smaller, related chunks. When reading the explanations below, consider their origins.
The <link> element defines the relationship between two documents. Consider yourself and a friend are reading a multiple page document. Between you is a string tied to one of your fingers, each. The string forms the link. Now consider that you want the next page. You can tug on the string and your friend will give it to you. However, we are a technological society so let us consider that you send a robot for it instead. It follows the string. Now, say this robot is semi-intelligent. Insteat of your having to ask it, it assumes that you will need the next page and follows the string and gets it. Whoops, what is the next page? Well, the robot takes a look at the page you have, determines what the next page is and gets it. But how does it determine what is the next page? It looks at the "<link href=" at the top of the page.
Consider that you have two friends reading the same document and you need to pass the pages between you. The robot looks at a bunch of "<link rel=" statements at the top of your page and follows the appropriate string to get the page you want. These different strings are identified in the "rel=" attribute. Now consider one of your friends is blind. The robot looks at the "method=" statement to see which copy is printed in braille for your blind friend.
This element must always appear in the <head> part of any page.
class=
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| charset= |
is a hint as to the expected character set used by the hyperlink. This was introduced with the internationalization proposal.
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dir=
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| "ltr" |
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| "rtl" |
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href=
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This attribute takes a "url" as the only argument. It is the path to the related page (determined by the "rel=" attribute.
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id=
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idref=
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"Sometimes it may be useful to specify a hypertext link separately from the text associated with the start of the link. For example a sidebar could be associated with a given paragraph as follows:
<LINK IDREF="z36" REL="Sidebar" HREF="sidebar.html">
The IDREF attribute localizes the link to an element in the current document with a specific identifier (as defined with the ID attribute). In the absence of the IDREF attribute, the link is associated with the current document as a whole.
" (HTML+)
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lang=
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media=
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The design of Cascading Style Sheets was expanded to include different ways of using documents. Now documents can be designed specifically for people with different handicaps or for different types of equipment.
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| "all"
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"Applies to all devices" (W3C HTML 4.0)
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| "braille"
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"Output is intended for braille tactile feedback devices" (W3C HTML 4.0)
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| "print"
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"Output is intended for paged, opaque material and for documents on screen viewed in print-preview mode" (W3C HTML 4.0)
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| "projection"
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"Output is intended for projectors" (W3C HTML 4.0)
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| "screen"
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"Output is intended for non-paged screens. This is the default value." (W3C HTML 4.0)
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| "speech"
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"Output is intended for a speech synthesizer." (W3C HTML 4.0)
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methods=
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This attribute describes the HTTP methods the object referred to by the HREF of the LINK element supports.
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rel=
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This establishes in the browser's memory the relationship between the current page and some other pages. Some browsers will present this information in a toolbar (see "banner" below for an example).
<link rel="next" href="nextlink.htm">
<link> also links the current file to a stylesheet file. The syntax is as follows:
<link rel="style" type="text/css" src="http://www.microsoft.com/ss_style.css">.
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| "Alternate"
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| "Banner"
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Example:
<link rel="banner" href="bannerf.html">
This syntax is correct but does not work with Netscape 3.0. Perhaps in the future — vapor-ware anyone?
I found that UdiWWW supported this argument so I include an example:
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| "Bookmark"
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"The link refers to a bookmark. A bookmark is a link to a key entry point within an extended document. The "title=" attribute may be used, for example to label the bookmark. Note that several bookmarks may be defined in each document." (W3C HTML 4.0)
"The URL specified by the HREF attribute is a bookmark, which is named by the TITLE attribute. Browsers should make these available as buttons on a toolbar or as entries in a navigation menu.
" (HTML+)
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| "Chapter"
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| "Contents"
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"The link refers to a document serving as a table of contents." (W3C HTML 4.0)
"The linked document acts as a contents page for a number of related documents. The browser should make this available as a button on a toolbar or as an entry in a navigation menu. The TITLE attribute can be used to override the default "Contents" name.
" (HTML+)
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| "Copyright"
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"The link refers to a copyright statement for the current document." (W3C HTML 4.0) |
| "Glossary"
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"The link refers to a document providing a glossary of terms that pertain to the current document." (W3C HTML 4.0) |
| "Help"
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"The link refers to a document offering help (more information, links to other sources of information etc.)" (W3C HTML 4.0)
"Associates a help document with this node.
" (HTML+)
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| "home"
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| "Index"
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"The link refers to a document providing an index for the current document." (W3C HTML 4.0) |
| "Made"
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"Defines who is the "maker" of this document. The HREF attribute should give an appropriate URL e.g. "mailto:dsr@hplb.hpl.hp.com". Browsers can use this to allow people to mail or post comments to the author of the document.
" (HTML+)
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| "Next"
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"The link refers to the next document in an ordered series of documents. This value is generally used with 'rel='." (W3C HTML 4.0)
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The linked document is next on a path of documents. Browsers should make this available as a button on a toolbar or as an entry in a navigation menu.
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| "Parent"
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"The linked document is at the next level up in a hierarchy of documents. Browsers should make this available as a button on a toolbar or as an entry in a navigation menu. There may be several such parents. The TITLE attribute should be used to name each such document.
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| "Previous"
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"The link refers to the previous document in an ordered series of documents. The value is generally used with 'rev'." (W3C HTML 4.0)
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The linked document is the previous one to the current document on a path of documents. Browsers should make this available as a button on a toolbar or as an entry in a navigation menu.
" (HTML+)
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| "search"
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"The link references a page for searching material related to a collection of pages." (HTML 3.2) |
| "Start"
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"The link refers to the first document in a collection of documents. This link type tells search engines which document in a collection is considered by the author to be the starting point of the collection." (W3C HTML 4.0) |
| "StyleSheet"
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"The link refers to an external stylesheet." (W3C HTML 4.0) |
| "ToC"
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| "Up"
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| "useglossary"
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"The linked document can be used to answer glossary queries for this document. Typically invoked by a double click on a word*1, or by drag selection, followed by clicking a menu item. There may be several such indexes. The TITLE attribute should be used to name each index, e.g. in menus and dialog boxes.
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| "useindex"
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"The linked document can be used as an index for this document. There may be several such indexes. The TITLE attribute should be used to name each index, e.g. in menus and dialog boxes. This relationship implies the document is searchable, and the browser should provide a means for users to type in one or more keywords. The index may be a full text WAIS index or a conventional hypertext-based index.
" (HTML+)
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rev=
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Consider that the robot goes to get the page and it want's to check to see if it is the right one. It checks the "rev=" on your page and compares it to the "rel=" statement on the other page.
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| "Alternate" |
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| "Banner" |
Example:
<link rel="banner" href="bannerf.html">
This syntax is correct but does not work with Netscape 3.0. Perhaps in the future — vapor-ware anyone?
I found that UdiWWW supported this argument so I include an example:
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| "Bookmark" |
"The link refers to a bookmark. A bookmark is a link to a key entry point within an extended document. The "title=" attribute may be used, for example to label the bookmark. Note that several bookmarks may be defined in each document." (W3C HTML 4.0) |
| "Contents"
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The link refers to a document serving as a table of contents.
" (W3C HTML 4.0)
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| "Copyright" |
"The link refers to a copyright statement for the current document." (W3C HTML 4.0) |
| "Glossary" |
"The link refers to a document providing a glossary of terms that pertain to the current document." (W3C HTML 4.0) |
| "Help" |
"The link refers to a document offering help (more information, links to other sources of information etc.)" (W3C HTML 4.0) |
| "home" |
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| "Index" |
"The link refers to a document providing an index for the current document." (W3C HTML 4.0) |
| "Next"
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"The link refers to the next document in an ordered series of documents. This value is generally used with 'rel='." (W3C HTML 4.0) |
| "Previous" |
"The link refers to the previous document in an ordered series of documents. The value is generally used with 'rev'." (W3C HTML 4.0) |
| "Start" |
"The link refers to the first document in a collection of documents. This link type tells search engines which document in a collection is considered by the author to be the starting point of the collection." (W3C HTML 4.0) |
| "StyleSheet" |
"The link refers to an external stylesheet." (W3C HTML 4.0) |
| "ToC" |
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| "Up" |
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| src= |
Introduced by Microsoft with IE3.0b1, "to establish the source of the stylesheet for the affected page(s)." (Microsoft IE3.0b1)
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style=
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target=
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This predicts the name of the frame where the page will be loaded when it is retrieved.
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| "_blank"
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makes the link to load into a new blank window. This window is not named. (Netscape)
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| "_parent"
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"This target makes the link load in the immediate FRAMESET parent of this document. This defaults to acting like "_self" if the document has no parent." (Netscape)
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| "_self"
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"This target causes the link to always load in the same window the anchor was clicked in. This is useful for overriding a globally assigned BASE target." (Netscape)
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| "_top"
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"This target makes the link load in the full body of the window. this defaults to acting like "_self" if the document is already at the top. It is useful for breaking out of an arbitrarily deep FRAME nesting." (Netscape)
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title=
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type=
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Introduced with Microsoft IE3.0b1 with a suggested argument of "text/css" to report the MIME type. (Microsoft IE3.0b1)
This attribute tells the browser what type of stylesheet is being retrieved.
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| text/css |
Establishes the related page to be handled as a Cascading Style Sheet page.
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| text/javascript |
Establishes the related page to be handled as a Javascript Style Sheet page.
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urn=
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This indicates the Unform Resource Name of the document; the specification for URN and other addressing is still in development.
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