RE: WebDAV Browsers

You will have to do an OPTIONS on the server to see if it is a DAV server.

As for #5, the response is just data, it is up to the client to handle
presentation. So I don't think there is an issue or a need for a new URL
scheme.

		Yaron

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Judith Slein [SMTP:slein@wrc.xerox.com]
> Sent:	Thursday, November 13, 1997 2:53 PM
> To:	w3c-dist-auth@w3.org
> Subject:	WebDAV Browsers
> 
> Here's something that I've been wondering about lately.  Do we expect that
> there will come to be standard WebDAV browsers, just as there are standard
> HTTP browsers today?  Or do we think that the main use of WebDAV will be
> by
> specialized client-side applications?
> 
> If there were standard WebDAV browsers, we might like them to be able to
> handle a simple scenario like this:
> 
> 1. GET MyHomePage HTTP/1.1
> 2. (response has an HTML page with links and / or controls, some of which
> do HTTP GETs and some of which cause WebDAV requests to be sent.  Maybe
> one
> of them causes an INDEX of my collection to be requested.)
> 3. User clicks on the control that causes INDEX to be requested
> 4. INDEX MyHomePage WebDAV/1.0
> 5. (response is a list of the resources in my collection, but I really 
> want it to be presented with links or controls that allow the user to
> choose, for any resource on the list, to GET the resource or alternatively
> to PROPFIND to see all its properties)
> 6. User asks to see the properties for a resource
> 7. PROPFIND MyHomePage/doc1.html WebDAV/1.0
> 8. (response lists all properties and their values)
> 9. User goes BACK to the index listing
> 10. User asks to retrieve the resource itself
> 11. GET MyHomePage/doc1.html HTTP/1.1
> 12. (response is the resource's content)
> 
> This scenario raises several questions for me.
> 
> First, how would a WebDAV browser know to send a WebDAV request rather
> than
> an HTTP GET or POST?  Do we need to standardize something in the HTML or
> XML realm here?  (I've had a couple of suggestions from colleagues at
> Xerox
> -- Larry Masinter suggests defining a DAV: URL scheme as a simple
> solution.)
> 
> Second, how could we get the flexibility step 5 would require, to present
> the results of INDEX (or any other WebDAV method) in a particular way?
> 
> --Judy

Received on Thursday, 13 November 1997 18:45:01 UTC