Fri, Feb 25, 2005
News Flash: Transclusions Already Ubiquitous! #
No, this is not an advertisement for PurpleWiki (although PurpleWiki does support TransClusions). This is a wakeup call. TransClusions already exist and have existed for a long time. No, I'm not talking about ProjectXanadu. I'm talking about the WorldWideWeb and spreadsheets, among others. (IDZ)
First things first. What's a TransClusion? A transclusion is a link where the content of the link is displayed inline. For example: (IE0)
is a link. This: (IE2)
is the content of that link displayed inline. Which, of course, is example number one. Images on the Web are transclusions. When I include a URL in <img> tags, the content of that URL is displayed. (IE4)
We use TransClusions all the time in spreadsheets. When I write =E27 in a cell, the spreadsheet displays the content of cell E27. (IE5)
TransClusions are useful, and they're ubiquitous, but not necessarily as "transclusions." They're not yet part of a shared conceptual framework for collaborative tools. Once we explicitly acknowledge their existence and their utility, we can think about implementing them across different applications in an interoperable way. (IE6)
/tech/purple | Posted at 11:00am
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