Media capabilities and HTTP

to follow up on what Daniel Dardailler said:
> 
> > then there could be an argument for a
> > modification to HTTP that would facilitate the extraction of titles from
> > HTML head elements, text fields from PNG images, etc.
> 
> Indeed, this part of HTTP could be clarified and extended and Javier
> is on the hook to produce a requirement document for that, that we
> will submit to the W3C HTTP working group.
> 

I have a recommended approach to how we handle WAI requirements
on capbility-negotiation.

The requirements for HTTP should come from the Styles work area.
HTTP and Styles should mutually work out how much information
about the media capabilities of the client session can/should go 
from client to server in support of autogeneration of pages or
selection of styles.   They will have to figure out whether it
will work to put stylesheet subtypes in the existing Accept
header or whether some new header field possibly named Target_Media
would work better.

The WAI needs to agree with the Styles work area on how we describe
the media capabilities active and/or preferred in the client session
so as to get 

	- full coverage of disability-accomodating adaptations
	in the interaction media

	- full benefit out of the tailoring potential of the
	styling resource.

This will separate disability-coverage from HTTP-message
concerns.  We can still demand to check that what we agree with
Styles on media characterization, when put into what they agree
with HTTP on capability negotiation, does not disclose
exploitable information to the server.  

The point is that we need a better MEDIA type to cover all cases
of adaptive accomodation.  The Styles have to understand this
type regardless of where they are applied, or how much the server
gets into the process.

-- Al Gilman

PS: The Styles people need this anyway.  Once the authors discover
that they need to try harder on logical layout to reach WebTV
and different-size-screens, there will be a demand to be able to
say:

	"This stylesheet performs autolayout for screens in
	the range from WebTV to 1024X728."

Received on Friday, 11 July 1997 13:07:07 UTC