How the Code for Disambiguation of an Acronym Works

How the plain HTML links work

The easy way to create HTML code indicating the acronym meaning is to simply include the acronym in an HTML <a> tag and an abbreviation tag (not an acronym-tag):

                        <a href="http://www.Acronyms.net/terms/t/Three-Letter-Acronym/" title="Three Letter Acronym" onclick="javascript:if (confirm('TLA stands for Three Letter Acronym')) return false;">
                        

                           <abbr>TLA</abbr>
                        

                        </a>
                        

                     

This is the recommended code for both HTML 4 browsers and HTML 5 browsers. Some browsers, most notably IE, do not activate help when the title attribute is coded on the <abbr> tag, but they do work as expected for titles on the <a> tag. The <abbr> tag inherits its title attribute from the parent <a> tag.

When the acronym is followed by a definition or description, how the title attribute is coded depends on whether the description following the acronym or initialism is a definition of what the acronym represents or is just the expanded meaning of the acronym.

When creating HTML code for the definition of what the acronym represents the title attribute on the HTML <abbr> tag can be used for both the expanded meaning of the acronym and to identify the term that is being defined by the <dfn> tag:

                        <p><a>A <a xlink:type="extended" href="http://www.Acronyms.net/terms/t/Three-Letter-Acronym/" title="TLA" onclick="javascript:if (confirm('TLA stands for Three Letter Acronym')) return false;">
                        

                           <dfn><abbr title="Three Letter Acronym">TLA</abbr></dfn>
                        

                        </a> is an acronym or initialism, often containing three letters,
                        

                        which is formed using the initial letters of each word in the acronym meaning.</p>
                        

                     

Note that for proper association of the <dfn> tag with the attributes of the <abbr> tag, the HTML 5 specification requires that the <dfn> tag must contain nothing other than the <abbr> tag. There can be no other element nodes (HTML tags) or text nodes in its content. See the HTML 5 <dfn> tag.

If you are creating HTML code that simply expands the acronym then indicate that it is the acronymn which is being defined using an HTML <dfn> tag with a title attribute around the <abbr> tag and follow the HTML for the hypertext link with the acronym definition:

                        <p><a>When we use the acronym <a href="http://www.Acronyms.net/terms/r/Really-Simple-Syndication/" title="Really Simple Syndication" onclick="javascript:if (confirm('RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication')) return false;">
                        

                           <dfn title="RSS"><abbr title="Really Simple Syndication">RSS</abbr></dfn>
                        

                        </a> it is the abbreviation for Really Simple Syndication.</p>
                        

                     

Advantages

• This code adds information for a tool tip that pops up automatically in HTML browsers to explain the acronym when the user mouses over it.

Disadvantages

• This code does not provide the pronunciation of the acronym, which would be needed for verbal rendering in auditory browsers. For that, an extended link or RDF metadata can be used.

How the XLink simple links work

The code for an XLink simple link for the acronym TLA is shown below. In HTML, the a tag defines a hypertext link, so it points to a web-accessible resource. Since the abbr tag is not an HTML hypertext link, its xlink:href tag contains a non-web URI Reference (URIRef).

                        <a href="http://www.Acronyms.net/terms/t/Three-Letter-Acronym/" title="Three Letter Acronym"
                        

                           xlink:type="simple"
                        

                           xlink:href="http://www.Acronyms.net/terms/t/Three-Letter-Acronym/"
                        

                           xlink:arcrole="&av;definedAt"
                        

                           xlink:role="&av;definition"
                        

                           xlink:title="Three Letter Acronym"
                        

                           xlink:show="new"
                        

                           xlink:actuate="onRequest"
                        

                        >
                        

                           <abbr
                        

                              xlink:type="simple"
                        

                              xlink:href="http://Acronyms.net/terms/Three-Letter-Acronym"
                        

                              xlink:arcrole="&av;standsFor"
                        

                              xlink:role="&av;term"
                        

                              xlink:title="TLA - Three Letter Acronym"
                        

                              xlink:actuate="none"
                        

                           >TLA</abbr>
                        

                        </a>
                        

                     

A simple link associates a local resource, which is the content of the element, with a remote resource, specified by the xlink:href attribute. The xlink:role attribute specifies the role of the target resource. The content of the a element is the abbr element, which is both a local resource and a nested XLink (but not an HTML link). The content of the abbr element is the acronym text ("TLA"). Thus, transposing to use extended links, the code above is equivalent to the following:

                        <a xlink:type="extended" href="http://www.Acronyms.net/terms/t/Three-Letter-Acronym/" title="Three Letter Acronym">
                        

                           <span xlink:type="resource" xlink:label="abbrev">
                        

                              <abbr xlink:type="extended">
                        

                                 <span xlink:type="resource" xlink:label="acronym">TLA</span>
                        

                                 <span xlink:type="locator" xlink:label="term" xlink:role="&av;term" xlink:href="http://Acronyms.net/terms/Three-Letter-Acronym" xlink:title="TLA - Three Letter Acronym"/>
                        

                                 <span xlink:type="arc" xlink:from="acronym" xlink:arcrole="&av;standsFor" xlink:to="term" xlink:actuate="none"/>
                        

                              </abbr>
                        

                           </span>
                        

                           <span xlink:type="locator" xlink:label="definition" xlink:role="&av;definition" xlink:href="http://www.Acronyms.net/terms/t/Three-Letter-Acronym/" xlink:title="Three Letter Acronym"/>
                        

                           <span xlink:type="arc" xlink:from="abbrev" xlink:arcrole="&av;definedAt" xlink:to="definition" xlink:show="new" xlink:actuate="onRequest"/>
                        

                        </a>
                        

                     

Advantages

• This code adds information for a tool tip that pops up automatically in HTML browsers to explain the acronym when the user mouses over it.
• The HTML and XLink code is consistent with respect to resources, in that the HTML link and XLink for the a element both reference a remote web-based resource while those for the abbr element both reference a non-web URI Reference.

Disadvantages

• This code does not provide the pronunciation of the acronym, which would be needed for verbal rendering in auditory browsers. For that, an extended link or RDF metadata can be used.

How the XLink extended links work

Extended links allow references to local resources in addition to remote ones. For example, the pronunciation of an acronym can be included as a local resource (see Pronunciation of Acronyms).

                        <a xlink:type="extended" href="http://www.Acronyms.net/terms/t/Three-Letter-Acronym/" title="Three Letter Acronym">
                        

                           <abbr xlink:type="resource" xlink:label="acronym">TLA</abbr>
                        

                           <span class="hide" xlink:type="resource" xlink:label="verbal" xlink:title="pronunciation">t l a</span>
                        

                           <span class="hide" xlink:type="resource" xlink:label="expand" xlink:title="expansion">Three Letter Acronym</span>
                        

                           <span class="hide" xlink:type="locator" xlink:label="term" xlink:role="&av;term" xlink:href="&at;ThreeLetterAcronym" xlink:title="Three Letter Acronym"/>
                        

                           <span class="hide" xlink:type="locator" xlink:label="definition" xlink:role="&av;definition" xlink:href="http://www.Acronyms.net/terms/t/Three-Letter-Acronym" xlink:title="Three Letter Acronym"/>
                        

                           <span class="hide" xlink:type="locator" xlink:label="finder" xlink:role="&av;reference" xlink:href="http://www.Acronyms.net/reference/t/TLA#Three-Letter-Acronym" xlink:title="TLA - Three Letter Acronym"/>
                        

                           <span class="hide" xlink:type="arc" xlink:from="acronym" xlink:arcrole="&av;pronounceAs" xlink:to="verbal" xlink:actuate="onLoad"/>
                        

                           <span class="hide" xlink:type="arc" xlink:from="acronym" xlink:arcrole="&av;expandsTo" xlink:to="expand"/>
                        

                           <span class="hide" xlink:type="arc" xlink:from="acronym" xlink:arcrole="&av;standsFor" xlink:to="term"/>
                        

                           <span class="hide" xlink:type="arc" xlink:from="term" xlink:arcrole="&av;definedAt" xlink:to="definition" xlink:show="new" xlink:actuate="onRequest"/>
                        

                           <span class="hide" xlink:type="arc" xlink:from="acronym" xlink:arcrole="&av;foundAt" xlink:to="finder" xlink:show="new" xlink:actuate="onRequest"/>
                        

                        </a>
                        

                     

This example includes three local resource and three remote ones. The arcs provide the relationships between these resources, which are:

Advantages

• This code adds information for a tool tip that pops up automatically in HTML browsers to explain the acronym when the user mouses over it.
• This code also provides the pronunciation of the acronym, which would be needed for verbal rendering in auditory browsers (see Pronunciation of Acronyms).
• Local and remote resources can be referenced more than once without having to repeat the URI Reference for the resource.
• This code assigns more appropriate XLink types to the HTML elements. The hypertext link becomes an XLink extended link while the text in the abbr tag becomes a resource.

How the embedded RDF metadata works

When possible, the XLink syntax is preferred to RDF due to its flexibility in assigning types to elements in markup code. The RDF syntax, which requires node elements and property elements to be striped, is included for use where RDF data is required.

Advantages

• This code adds information for a tool tip that pops up automatically in HTML browsers to explain the acronym when the user mouses over it.
• This code also provides the pronunciation of the acronym, which would be needed for verbal rendering in auditory browsers (see Pronunciation of Acronyms).

Disadvantages

• In RDF, node elements and property elements must be alternated, which provides less flexibility when embedding metadata in HTML.
• If a resource is the object of more than one predicate, the URI Reference must be repeated in each predicate.

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Last updated Saturday February 21, 2009