Created 2010 October 7. Updated 2011 April 27.
To link to page assets, rather than embed them
Then use JavaScript to embed when wanted
Images <a href="image.jpg" rel="asset"> Rob eating limited edition 1/20th rubber washing-machine </a> Video <a href="video.mov" rel="asset"> Mary opening a tin of paint </a> <a href="youtube.com?v=9aushd98h" rel="asset"> Marble being watched by 5 cats </a> <a href="vimeo.com" rel="asset"> Tutorial on how to fry an egg </a> Audio <a href="audio.ogg" rel="asset"> Harry throwing a wobbly cushion into the fireplace </a> Tables <a href="table.html" rel="asset"> One of those stupendously large and unwieldy tabular fests </a>
To work with asset attributes like width and height a couple of ways came to mind. Data attributes like data-width as shown in the article Using Media Queries in the Real World. And query parameters like ?asset-width=200 and so on.
For authors it may be easier to hack a query parameter rather than edit data attributes; URIs are more familiar than data attributes. But it's much of a muchness really.
I keep switching my preference between using the class or rel attribute to identify an asset link. If any attribute is more familiar to authors then it is the class and id attributes. Rel would seem proper. A script could happily account for both.
Linked images? what about ?asset-url= or data-url attribute.