Re: HTTP - why not multiple connections?

On Fri, 16 Dec 1994, Jeffrey Mogul wrote:
>     The fastest way to get all the text is to send it first but it
>     can't be displaye until layout information like the size and shape
>     of all images is known.  This is the point of the Netscape multiple
>     connections.  They get the first few bits of each image which
>     contain the size information.
>     
> This is the one thing that Netscape's approach does help with.  I
> admit that it's nice to see the text laid out before the images arrive.
> But there is more than one way to solve this problem, and I think
> Netscape's solution causes more network-related trouble than necessary.
>
> For example, as long as we are making minor changes to HTTP anyway,
> how about definining a new method called "GET_BOUNDING_BOXES" (or
> pick a shorter name).  This would take a list of URLs, and the server
> would return the appropriate image attributes (height, width, maybe
> a few other parameters) for each image.  If the server doesn't want
> to do this, or if one of the URLs is in an unrecognized format, no
> problem; the client just has to wait until the real image is retrieved.

NetScape themselves provide a solution in the form of WIDTH and HEIGHT
attributes to the IMG tag - if used everywhere the document can be laid out
completely before any images retreived.  I'd be against having authoring
tools or the author themselves put this information in, but if we go down the
path of having servers "do something" to the HTML they serve before sending
it to the client (a la server-side includes, something we use a lot here)
then having servers add those attributes to those tags isn't such a bad idea
(servers can cache these translations anyways).  

I guess the big question is - do we solve this problem in HTML or HTTP?
Or both?

	Brian

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Received on Friday, 16 December 1994 13:06:52 UTC