[tei-council] facsimile - low-end markup

[Lou Burnard]

Dot Porter wrote:
> Would it make a difference if we allowed @url on <milestone> and <cb>
> in addition to <pb>? I was going to say milestoneLike but having @url
> on <lb> and <fw> doesn't make quite as much sense.
Rather than sticking a magic attribute on various elements (and 
therefore having to decide which ones), wouldn't it be better to use a 
special kind of empty element? <facs ptr="overthere.jpg"/> for example.

The problems with this allegedly simple solution are legion though:

1. It doesn't scale. When I want to enhance my image collection or add 
more complex linking I have to throw away what I've done.
2. It depends on special rules that are not explicit in the markup (the 
bit of text corresponding with this image starts here and ends ...er... 
where exactly? the next <facs> in sequence? what if I don't have an 
image of the next page, but do have one of the next page but one?
3. The @coords thing is strange. According to the spec I looked at, in 
order to do the job properly you actually need two other bits of 
information in addition to the magic numbers in the coords. You need to 
know what *shape* you are pointing at -- three numbers could mean a 
triangle or could mean a circle. And you need to know what is the "base 
image" relative to which the co-ords are calculated. (Trivia like units 
we leave aside because of course there's only one kind of unit in the 
world). To make this work, you have to simplify things by saying "only 
rectangular shapes can be defined", and "all coords are relative to the 
last mentioned page image".
4. I don't see how this naive solution is going to interoperate with the 
<facsimile> way.