RE: OBJECT, inheritance, and rendering

Braden N. McDaniel wrote (2:03 PM -0700 8/4/98):

 " ...the most important thing here is
 " that it looks like the spec doesn't say. Meaning, IMO, we really need a
 " clarification.

I agree. Or perhaps a new element, or a redefinition of OBJECT's behavioral
semantics (seeing as it hasn't yet been implemented quite to spec yet(?)).

I've been following the discussion with only one eye, but I think something
along the lines proposed by David Baron would be great: a MIME type for
HTML fragments (text/htmf?) - perhaps with the stricture that they be
well-formed fragments. This seems in line with efforts to develop HTML 5
into a modular XML application. The results of htmf inclusion via OBJECT
would be comparable to a server-side include. Even better, perhaps: be able
to include id's within complete HTML documents; e.g.,

<OBJECT data="http://www.prismaticbooger.com/index.html#chug"
type="text/htmf">
   <em>Unfortunately, your UA doesn't support OBJECT for inclusion of HTML
   fragments, so you're reading this instead.</em>
</OBJECT>

This would render the element whose id="chug" and all its children, exactly
as if the element had been included server-side, with all the usual
inheritance rules applying.

Servers could pre-process such files as they were being served in order to
take care of legacy UAs, or just to speed things along as load permitted.
UAs could fetch their own includes if bandwidth were high, or let the
server do it if low.
--
Todd Fahrner                   The printed page transcends space and time.
mailto:fahrner@pobox.com       The printed page, the infinitude of books,
http://www.verso.com/agitprop/ must be transcended. THE ELECTRO-LIBRARY.
                                                   - El Lissitzky, 1923

Received on Tuesday, 4 August 1998 17:54:11 UTC