RE: Bobby non-handling of "*.shtml"

Harvey.

We see this problem every once a while. It is probably not because of the
.sht* extension. We have found that often the problem has to  do with some
sort of server-side redirection. You can usually get through using the
;Bobby Application.a

Hope this helps.


David M. Clark
CAST, Inc., 39 Cross St., Peabody, MA  01960
Tel 978-531-8555 x236 - Fax 978-531-0192
Email dmclark@cast.org
http://www.cast.org/bobby/

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-bobby@cast.org [mailto:owner-bobby@cast.org]On Behalf Of Harvey
Bingham
Sent: Friday, August 20, 1999 2:36 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list bobby
Subject: Bobby non-handling of "*.shtml"

Trying to submit following URL to the public version of Bobby,

    www.cast.org/bobby

I get message:

    Can't connect to: http://www.esperanza-lutheran.org

I question this message, that led me astray. I have found the problem.
That URL gets appended before the suffix with file type "shtml":

    /index.shtml

I can run that URL against the downloaded version of Bobby 3.1.1 build 6.

From that local run, I see that all 36 files on that site have filetype
*.shtml. I know not why. Glad I could run the local version. I believe
there is a better warning message than just

     Can't connect to: http://www.esperanza-lutheran.org.

You should certainly be able to recognize the "*.shtml" or I suppose
"*.sht" if that is a 3-character surrogate, like "*.htm" is for "*.html".
Possibly respond with:

     Cannot analyze file with privacy suffix "*.shtml"

Or even less specific:

     Can only analyze HTML files with a case-insensitive suffix:
     ".htm", or ".HTML".

Suggest that authoring tools make more explicit when files should be
marked private. [Microsoft FrontPage 4.0 was the authoring tool credited
with causing this problem. I don't use it so don't know what control
the author has.]

Suggest that user agents recognize this bar to display, sometimes
opened by a request for a password, though not in the cited case.
Is there other metadata that prevents analysis by Bobby?
This may be a significant bar to public checking of the corporations
who try to protect themselves by "*.shtml".

Regards/Harvey Bingham

Received on Friday, 20 August 1999 17:05:51 UTC