XHTML as XML

Hi list


My website, www.smackthemouse.com, has been serving XHTML 1.1 with
mime-type application/xhtml+xml to the browsers understanding it and
XHTML 1.0 Strict and text/html to the rest of the gang (IE) for more
than a month now. I use the HTTP accept-header to test what to serve.

No problems so far worth mentioning to this list but I have three
questions.

1) What would you consider Best Practice to use as mime-type for user
agents, web spiders, etc., not sending an HTTP accept-header?

I have decided to give them the best I have to offer,
application/xhtml+xml. I have two arguments. A) Since they don't send an
http accept-header they either don't need to know about mime-types in
order to work or they are not worth dealing with. B) Google is not
sending an accept-header, and I would like Google to be able to detect
that I offer my XHTML as XML.

2) Is it a bug for Mozilla/FireFox suddenly to require that we also
style the html element with background-color similar to the body
element? The Opera browser don't have this problem. In my opinion, the
body element must be the "top" element of the view port also when XHTML
is XML. 

3) I have read in some FAQ at Mozilla.org,
http://www.mozilla.org/docs/web-developer/faq.html#accept, that
Mozilla/FireFox is not at the moment rendering XHTML as XML
incrementally. According to the author of the FAQ it is a question of a
bug or of lack of implementation.

Do any of you know if other browsers like Opera are rendering XHTML as
XML incrementally and do you consider it a problem for the future
prospects of XHTML as XML if browsers render it none incrementally? Many
web developers and end-users don't like the idea of XHTML served as XML
being slower than old HTML. If that is the case?

Best regards,
Jesper Tverskov

Received on Wednesday, 9 February 2005 05:40:08 UTC