[Bug 12569] New: "Resource" Package Support

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=12569

           Summary: "Resource" Package Support
           Product: HTML WG
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: All
        OS/Version: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: enhancement
          Priority: P2
         Component: HTML5 spec (editor: Ian Hickson)
        AssignedTo: ian@hixie.ch
        ReportedBy: wojjie2nd@gmail.com
         QAContact: public-html-bugzilla@w3.org
                CC: mike@w3.org, public-html-wg-issue-tracking@w3.org,
                    public-html@w3.org


With the overhead involved with each server request to load various resources
such as images/videos/etc, most webmasters have began doing everything possible
to optimize the number of requests necessary for a given page. Some methods
that they opt to use is the merging of images by using CSS to map the merged
image to the individual area, merging javascript files into one file, merging
CSS files, delayed loading of images till they are scrolled onto the screen,
among other strategies. 

Now, what I am suggesting, I am not sure whether it is included or has been
suggested before, though I did spend some time looking. I would like to see a
new "link" support in the <head> tag that allows a developer to specify a
compressed tarball to utilize as a resource within the page, along with a url
mask to match the tarball to resources on the page, which the mask would
default to matching all urls that start with the url of the resource tarball. 

For instance, a resource tarball located at "http://domain.ext/res/main.tgz"
would match by default an image that might be called like '<img
src="http://domain.ext/res/main.tgz/header.png" />' which would find the
'header.png' in the main.tgz tarball and use that. 

This would greatly decrease the number of requests to the server as you can now
merge all javascript, css, and images into one request! Also, with the url mask
approach, it is very backwards compatible as a server can handle the url
"http://domain.ext/res/main.tgz/header.png" and delivery that individual file
easily.

Another thing that can be done to optimize page loading, and it would be
something in the hands of browsers and webmasters is the ability to load
resources from the tarball as they are downloaded, and before the whole tarball
is downloaded. Then webmasters could make sure that the CSS file is at the
start of the tarball, followed by the javascript files required, then the
images in the order they are used.

I would be very grateful for a feature like this, and believe it starts with
adding it to the specification, since starting with the implementation can shed
bad light on the first implementer. Lastly, if this is the wrong place to
suggest this, please direct me to who/where I can submit it.

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Received on Friday, 29 April 2011 04:53:36 UTC