Re: OBJECT's type attribute in 4.01

In reply to the message below:

1. The content-type HTTP header does not tell the client how to process
   the object. It tells what is the content-type of the object.
   The client should decide how to process it.

2. It may be reasonable to serve the same object with different mime types
   to different clients. To implement this don't specify any type attribute
in the object 
   element and configure the server to serve the object with different
content-type headers
   based on content negotiation (accept or user-agent) request headers
received from the client.

The above solution is implementable with HTML4.01 and HTTP/1.1.

Regards,
Nir.

At 01:18 PM 8/30/99 -0400, Dmitry Beransky wrote:
...
>I used to assign different mime types to the EMBED (read OBJECT) tag to 
>control what plugin will be used to render a particular media type and in 
>what order.
>
>Example: MP3s can be rendered using Microsoft's Media Player, Apple's 
>Quicktime 4.0 plugin, any other MP3 capable plugin.  It's not unreasonable 
>to assume that many users will have at least Media Player and Quicktime 
>installed and fighting for the chance to render an MP3 file.
>
>Why is it important to know which plugin is used?  Let's say that I need to 
>control the playback with JavaScript or by any other means.  In fact, let's 
>say I'd prefer to use the Media Player because it's easier to control with 
>JavaScript.  But if the Media Player is not available, I'm willing to scale 
>back to Quicktime.  If there is no Quicktime, let the browser render the 
>file with whatever's available.
>
>The way I used to do it is the following (this is a simplified example):
>    <embed ... type="application/x-mplayer2">
>       <embed ... type="application/quicktime">
>          <embed ... type="audio/mpeg">
>             <a href="..." type="audio/mpeg">MP3 file</a>
>          </embed>
>       </embed>
>    </embed>
>
>[please don't take this example literally, but rather as an idea for what 
>I'd like to do.]
>
>So here's the question, what is the preferred way of achieving the same 
>effect using HTML 4.01?  I don't think it's possible.
>
>
>Regards
>Dmitry Beransky
>
>At 09:14 AM 8/30/99 , Nir Dagan wrote:
>>The situation described below by Dmitry Beransky assumes that the HTML
author
>>and the HTTP server administrator work against each other.
>>The specifications (HTML and HTTP) assume, what is more reasonable,
>>that they work in coordination.
> 
===================================
Nir Dagan
Assistant Professor of Economics
Brown University 
Providence, RI
USA

http://www.nirdagan.com
mailto:nir@nirdagan.com
tel:+1-401-863-2145

Received on Tuesday, 31 August 1999 13:37:36 UTC