For the HTML author, using this action sheet is incredibly easy. He or she can
simply LINK to it in the same way he or she would LINK to a style sheet. As
written above, the event only becomes available to an element that is assigned
the "hilight" value using the generally available CLASS attribute of
any element in HTML 4.0. Since Navigator doesn't support the full HTML DOM, it
can't have events bubble up the object tree from children to parents in the way
that IE 4.x and later will. Netscape promises better DOM compliance in its 5.0
version that will give it a better way to generalize events.
So, if an author had a simple page with a headline and a paragraph of text
and wanted to make both elements separately "highlightable", the HTML
to call the Hilight.act action sheet might look like this:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Action Sheet Demo</TITLE>
<LINK REL="Actionsheet" TYPE="text/act" HREF="Hilight.act"
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<H1 CLASS="hilight">This is the BIG headline</H1>
<P CLASS="hilight">This is a bunch of greek text. This
is a bunch of greek text. This is a bunch of greek text.
This is a bunch of greek text.</P>
</BODY>
</HTML>
At this point, the Action Sheet proposal is an academic exercise. Although
Microsoft tells me they whipped together an implementation of the spec as
written shortly after it was released a few weeks ago, the final spec is likely
to be a combination of what's been submitted by Netscape and the Behaviors
proposal which Microsoft introduced in IE5. Behaviors has not been submitted to the
W3C as a complete proposal because it builds on several projects in the works by
the XML Activity Group.
The largest difference between Behaviors and Action Sheets is that there is a
public testbed for the former in the IE5 beta that came out in early July. It's
also a little more complex and a little more powerful. I'll provide a thorough
run-down on Behaviors next time.
and find truth, justice, and a clue or two.
