Re: XHTML Media Types

"Nigel Peck - MIS Web Design" <nigel@miswebdesign.com> writes:

> Can an XHTML 1.1 conforming document be served as text/html?
> 
> According to 
> http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/NOTE-xhtml-media-types-20020801/#summary 
> 
> and RFC3023
> http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3023.txt
> 
> SHOULD NOT means that it is alright as long as considered carefully,
> so does this mean that text/html can be used for XHTML 1.1?

The HTML WG would say NO for XHTML versions greater than 1.0.  They
generated RFC 3236, which registers the content-type
"application/xhtml+xml" that they intend for this.  Unfortunately,
I believe IE still does not support it.  (It is not clear that
there is an official W3C recommendation that covers the question.)

Many of those working on MathML had hoped to be able to serve XHTML
1.1 + MathML 2.0 as "text/html" since Amaya had been handling it.  But
the Mozilla developers did not want to go this way, and as things have
worked out so far, for maximal understanding by user agents, including
IE + "MathPlayer", XHTML 1.0 + MathML 2.0 should be served as
"text/xml".  (See http://www.w3.org/Math/XSL/)

Without math XHTML 1.1 should work as text/xml if served with an
adequate CSS sheet and may work as "tag soup" if served as "text/html".

Another way to say it is that, public standards notwithstanding, the
content-type "text/html" is currently being construed by mass market
user agents as "tag soup".

                                    -- Bill

Received on Wednesday, 27 August 2003 16:29:01 UTC