Re: XHTML with Internet Explorer

From: "Jim Ley" <jim@jibbering.com>

> The normative 5.1 states:
>
> | HTML Documents which follow the guidelines set forth in
> | Appendix C, "HTML Compatibility Guidelines" may be
> | labeled with the Internet Media Type "text/html" [RFC2854]
>
> This normative part requires that documents served as text/html must
"follow
> the guidelines set forth in Appendix C".  If this incorrect this needs
> clarifying.

It says that if you follow the guidelines in Appendix C you may serve it as
text/html. That is just a matter of fact.

> > for instance using content negotiation.
>
> I don't understand this, if you're using content-negotiation it would be
> trivial to serve appropiate versions of the document.

It is even more trivial to serve the same document in two different ways, as
many people do.

> > Which outstanding issues are those?
>
> XHTML-1.0/6232   for example.

In what sense has that not been answered? I even pointed you to the general
answer the HTML WG created to this class of questions.

Ian Hixon suggested changes to Appendix C which the HTML Working Group
largely did not agree with.

> > XHTML1 is an XML application, and that is its only intended use. The
> correct
> > media type for it is application/xhtml+xml (though there is nothing in
> > RFC3023 (for XML Media types) that makes it illegal to serve it as
> text/xml
> > or application/xml, which indeed some browsers do accept.)
>
> If this is the case then correcting 5.1 of XHTML 1  to state this would be
> seem to relevant, as that is not what 5.1 says, as it says they may be
> labelled at "text/html" and may also be labelled as
"application/xhtml+xml"
> .

Well, it may also be labelled as "text/plain". It is the RFC for the media
type that defines what happens.

> > "The 'application/xhtml+xml' media type [RFC3236] is THE media type for
> > XHTML Family document types"
>
> This is from an informative note, and is different to Section 5.1 of
XHTML1.
> If this is the WG's opinion then 5.1 needs changing.

It is a document bringing together pointers to normative documents. It
introduces no new normative text, it summarises current normative text.

> > So Tantek is right: if you serve a XHTML1 document as text/html to IE,
it
> > will be processed as HTML, which is correct behaviour: if I serve a
> document
> > as text/html, I am asking for it to be processed as HTML;
>
> Yes, but XHTML1 specifically allows XHTML documents to be served as
> text/html, it does not say anywhere that I can see that they will be
> processed as HTML (the informative Appendix C says this, but as you've
> explained that is informative not normative)

This is because the RFC for text/html specifies that.

Best wishes,

Steven Pemberton

Received on Tuesday, 4 November 2003 13:23:37 UTC