RE: CSS3 @font-face / EOT Fonts - new compromise proposal

> From: Thomas Lord [mailto:lord@emf.net]
> Hi, Sylvain.
>
>
> On Tue, 2008-11-11 at 10:37 -0800, Sylvain Galineau wrote:
> > I had not - so thank you - but I am not sure
> > this answers my much more modest and general
> > question. Let me retry.
> >
> > Beyond raw TT/OT and a compressed version of
> > them, a new font format could well emerge five
> > years from now. Are user agents supposed to
> > sniff the content returned by the server to
> > figure out which flavor the font is encoded
> > in, or should HTTP headers provide that information ?
> > What is the most consistent wrt other resource types ?
>
>
> The most consistent approach is to treat the headers
> as definitive (if they are present), falling back
> to the type information stated in the *link* (if
> present).
>
> Of course, browsers are also "tolerant in what
> they receive" and so they support things like
> automatically inferring a mime type for a resource
> based on the "file name [really, URL] extension"
> or, yes, by sniffing contents (e.g., distinguishing
> between "apparent HTML" and "apparent plain text").
>
> So, browsers (user agents, processing agents, whatever
> you want to call the category) sometimes sniff contents
> and use other tricks but best practice is to use
> the HTTP headers and the design of new standards should
> assume best practices.
>
> -t
>


That is my understanding as well. So color me puzzled if different font formats and encodings should not be reflected in HTTP headers.

Received on Wednesday, 12 November 2008 01:11:52 UTC