On 31 May 99, at 11:02, Hohberger, Clive P. wrote:
> I don't disagree... but that's an artifact of software design,
> and I've seen systems where "www.zebra.com" also
> clickable. Microsoft Outlook, unfortunately, is the former.
>
> Certainly if you objective is to make it clickable, that's
> different from properly displaying your web address
> correctly in a magazine or TV ad.
It's largely a matter of context, and in the absence of higher level
tagging it's pretty hard to reliably figure out that a text string
has special significance. Do you want any string containing one or
more dots to be treated as a URL ? Only non-numeric ones ? Those
that begin with www. ? If we are talking about decimal separators
and write "a number of the form x.y" do you want it to be highlighted
and clickable ? How about the swearing of comic book characters -
"Why the !@#$% can't vendor x implement standard y correctly" ? Many
mail readers will highlight that "bad word" as an email address.
I think showing the http:// (now did your reader highlight that ill
formed example?) in print or TV ads is sensible - it sets the context
just as writing Tel: +1 234 567-8901 does.
Tony H.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jul 10 2001 - 17:20:46 EDT