Downloading of images by UA

Section 3.14.2 (current CVS checkout):
"When the src attribute is set, the user agent must immediately begin to
download the specified resource, unless the user agent cannot support
images, or its support for images has been disabled."

This appears to exclude the possibility of a UA that allows the user to select
interactively which images to download. Lynx supports this by treating iamges
as links, with @alt as the link text. Other user interfaces are conceivable,
however.

My question is whether the spec should exclude this type of behaviour, as it
appears to do, or whether the "must not" in the above should be qualified
further.

One could construe "its support for images has been disabled" as covering this
case, but I think this exception is more likely to be interpreted as applying
only when image rendering has been turned off entirely, leaving open the issue
noted above.

Received on Tuesday, 31 July 2007 08:42:51 UTC