The status of <object>

Because of some errors or ambiguities in earlier XHTML drafts there has been
some confusion about the role of <object> in future versions of XHTML.

In order to make the decisions public as quickly as possible, I am posting
this to the public HTML
mailing list.

This is the official position:
    <object> will be in XHTML 1.1 and XHTML Basic.

There has also seemed to be some misunderstanding about how <object>
operates, and that it would require a big implementation effort in a small
browser. But quoting from HTML 4
(http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/struct/objects.html#h-13.3.1
)

    A user agent must interpret an OBJECT element according to the following
precedence rules:

    1. The user agent must first try to render the object. [...]
    2. If the user agent is not able to render the object [...] it must try
to render its contents.

This means that a browser is only required to render objects it is able to.
If it doesn't implement images, or whatever, it just renders the content of
the <object> element instead.

Steven Pemberton
Chair, HTML Working Group

Received on Wednesday, 7 June 2000 11:25:08 UTC