Re: charset Reality Check

>>   BTW, Accept-parameter is not useful; charset is the only parameter
>>   shared by multiple media types.  We could invent some new parameters,
>>   but that only makes the problem worse.  Also, a quality attribute is
>>   only useful if we add it to the content-negotiation algorithm --
>>   something I would like to avoid (like the plague that it has become).
> 
> I think the image/* types might share information about color & size,
> just as the text/* types would share information about character sets.

Is such a definition available for image/*?  Personally, I'd rather avoid
the whole issue, because the next thing someone is going to ask for is:

    Accept-font: YIKES

Pre-emptive content negotiation just doesn't work.  Perhaps we should try
to define a matrix of common client characteristics/behavior, and just
provide a header for that.  E.g. one of

    Agent-profile: graphic, color=24, xwin
    Agent-profile: graphic, grey=8, mwin, unicode
    Agent-profile: graphic, bw, xwin
    Agent-profile: text
    Agent-profile: braille

or maybe not.  I don't see any good way to go about it.


......Roy Fielding   ICS Grad Student, University of California, Irvine  USA
                                     <fielding@ics.uci.edu>
                     <URL:http://www.ics.uci.edu/dir/grad/Software/fielding>

Received on Wednesday, 11 January 1995 02:21:47 UTC