Re: SV: Latest version of XHTML

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Hi folks ;-)

Am Sonntag, 9. März 2003 13:23 schrieb Nigel Peck - MIS Web Design:
> > XHTML (these browsers announce this to the server by using
> > application/xhtml+xml as part of the list value for the HTTP Accept:
>
> header field).
>
> Is it only Internet Explorer that is broken in terms of the Accept: header?
> My understanding was that browsers in general didn't implement it properly?
I don't know wether Mozilla, Opera, Konqueror, lynx, links and w3m follow the 
specs correctly, but MS IE is extremely broken regarding its Accept header.

To demonstrate this I have a list of Accept headers sent by diverse browsers:
Konqueror: text/*, image/jpeg, image/png, image/*, */*
This header is missing application/xml, text/xml, application/xhtml+xml and 
image/gif. image/gif of course is intentionally left out because GIF is a 
proprietary image format. PNG should be preferred. All types are missing the 
q attribute.

Mozilla: 
text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,video/x-mng,image/png,image/jpeg,image/gif;q=0.2,text/css,*/*;q=0.1
This header is fabulous, great, phenomenal!
Nothing more to say.

Opera:
text/html, image/png, image/jpeg, image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, */*
This header again is missing application/xml, text/xml and 
application/xhtml+xml.

So I retract my statement about Konqueror and Opera sending good Accept 
headers. Mozilla does. Opera and Konqueror need some improvement.

This is the Accept header of Lynx:
text/html, text/plain, application/vnd.sun.xml.writer, 
application/vnd.sun.xml.writer.global, application/vnd.stardivision.writer, a
pplication/vnd.stardivision.writer-global, application/x-starwriter, 
application/vnd.sun.xml.writer.template, application/vnd.sun.xml.calc, appli
cation/vnd.stardivision.calc, application/x-starcalc, 
application/vnd.sun.xml.calc.template, application/vnd.sun.xml.impress, 
application/vnd.sta
rdivision.impress, application/vnd.stardivision.impress-packed, 
application/x-starimpress, application/vnd.sun.xml.impress.template, 
application/
vnd.sun.xml.draw, application/vnd.stardivision.draw, application/x-stardraw, 
application/vnd.sun.xml.draw.template, application/vnd.sun.xml.math,
 application/vnd.stardivision.math, application/x-starmath, image/*, 
application/x-gunzip, application/x-gzip, application/x-bunzip2, application
/x-tar-gz, video/*, audio/x-pn-realaudio, audio/vnd.rn-realaudio, 
application/smil, text/vnd.rn-realtext, 
application/x-shockwave-flash2-preview,
 application/sdp, application/x-sdp, application/vnd.rn-realmedia, text/sgml, 
application/postscript, */*;q=0.01

I'd say this header is somewhat overkill. But it is okay, yeah, yes, it is 
okay. And despite somewhat might think it's slow to submit a request such a 
header, lynx is really fast.


This is the Accept header of links:
*/*
I'd say this is lazy, no, not just lazy but broken.

This is the Accept header of w3m:
text/*, image/*, application/*, video/*, audio/*
I'd say this is as with links, just broken, only in a more explicitely 
expressed way.


And this is the Accept header of Internet Explorer (6.0 on WinXP Home):
image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, */*

This is nonsense as with links or w3m. (Can we say now that Internet Explorer, 
w3m and links are browsers of the same quality? Let the flame war begin! ;-)

I've also seen IE headers requesting Excel, Powerpoint and Word documents.
After hitting reload, IE sends Accept: */*


I therefore demand that this topic will be investigated further, documented 
and reported to the people at W3C and IETF responsible for HTTP and MIME 
(just to inform them) and, of course, more important, reported to the browser 
vendor's development teams so they know what's going wrong and what needs to 
be improved.


I'd say, an example of an ideal Accept header for a browser like Konqueror or 
Opera (both can handle HTML, XML and XHTML) is:
Accept: 
text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/css,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,image/png,image/jpeg;q=0.2,*/*;q=0.1
Which is, of course, just a terse example which should be extended to accept 
JavaScript and those types for that plugins were found, like Java, Flash or 
SVG.

Of course, when I speak of broken header, they are not broken in terms of 
following the RFC 2616, which describes HTTP/1.1. They are broken in 
usefulness for the Web.


What do you think?
- -- 
ITCQIS GmbH
Christian Wolfgang Hujer
Geschäftsführender Gesellschafter
Telefon: +49  (0)89  27 37 04 37
Telefax: +49  (0)89  27 37 04 39
E-Mail: Christian.Hujer@itcqis.com
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Received on Sunday, 9 March 2003 14:26:24 UTC