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.htmld Discussion
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 1995 10:09:16 -0800
From: Dan Grillo <Dan_Grillo@NeXT.COM>
Subject: What's in a .htmld or .htmd?
To: webstep@xent.caltech.edu, khare@CALTECH.EDU
Message-id: <9501261809.AA16013@femail.NeXT.COM>
Organization: Technical Support, NeXT Computer, Inc.
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> This one is a raging open question, but probably the easiest settled
> Generally, we want such a format to be self-contained, so the intention is that
> the wrapper can include other files, directories, symlinks; and that such
> structure should be preserved by cooperating applications (eText, for example,
> garbage collects). Here are a few of the design choices:
>
> .htmd (HyperText Markup Document) vs .htmld
> index.html vs. _____ (TXT.rtf, multiple topics, a la sanguish)
> multi-format representations (index-ascii, index-mono, index-color)
I'll continue with this one.
First, .htmld is already registered with NeXT's type registry;
I did it a long time ago.
I don't think .htmd is.
What should be in a .htm[l]d? Right know I know of 3 forms.
1. foo.htmld/index.html
2. foo.htmld/TXT.html
3. foo.htmld/foo.html
I think forms 1 & 3 are useful.
Pages, StepWise, and NeXTanswers all currently serve files saved as .htmld
Right now NeXTanswers uses form #3, so the internal .html can be FTP'ed
or saved from a web browser and used on it's own. This is hard to
do if they all are index.html.
--Dan
--
Dan Grillo dan_grillo@next.com (415) 780-2963 now in building 1
What profits a man if he gains the world, yet loses his Slack?
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From: Scott Anguish <sanguish@digifix.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 95 14:07:06 -0500
To: webstep@mail.xent.caltech.edu
Subject: What's in a .htmld or .htmd?
Reply-To: sanguish@digifix.com
References: <9501261825.AA16331@femail.NeXT.COM>
Dan Grillo wrote
> What should be in a .htm[l]d? Right know I know of 3 forms.
>
> 1. foo.htmld/index.html
> 2. foo.htmld/TXT.html
> 3. foo.htmld/foo.html
>
> I think forms 1 & 3 are useful.
>
> Pages, StepWise, and NeXTanswers all currently serve files saved as .htmld
>
> Right now NeXTanswers uses form #3, so the internal .html can be FTP'ed
> or saved from a web browser and used on it's own. This is hard to
> do if they all are index.html.
>
Unfortunately, #3 is not something that most web servers can be set to use as the default page for a directory... that's the reason I use index.html, so I can take advantage of the web server's ability to display a default page, instead of a directory listing..
Not all of us have written our own servers Dan... :-)
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 95 12:40:48 PST
From: khare (To: webstep@mail.xent.caltech.edu)
To: webstep@mail.xent.caltech.edu
Subject: FORMAT-SPEC: .htmld
Reply-To: khare@caltech.edu
Proposal 0: Define .htmld
====================================
Dan mentions that .htmld has been registered as an official document type. The question before us is:
name.htmld/index.html vs. name.htmld/name.html
*) Pages, eText, and default cern-httpd is happiest with index.html
*) Scott's manual StepWise management uses index.html
*) Nobody is considering TXT.html; FWIW, Mail.app uses index.rtf
*) Dan supports name.htmld/name.htmld for downloading purposes.
How can we accomodate either/both? First, what are the circumstances for downloading? D/L the html, and all you can have is text; graphics, charts, &c are "left behind"; indeed, Pages, eText, and StepWise docs are not self-sufficient in that way.
Can a compromise be met by using a symbolic link within Dan's server? I think if Dan wrote index, linked to name, and proceeded to use the name link in other uses, it would make for a formally interoperable spec. Feel free to dissent; it may be overkill. Of course, if there are no other "essential" files within name.htmld/name.html, why not leave it at name.html, and leave the htmld type for *self-contained* html resources?
2) What about Scott? The implicit rule of defining htmld is "one html per document", like rtfd. However, what about versioning, like a possible index and index-with-graphics approach? Should we define the standard to be "the same html, in possibly several files"?
Of course, we should address why we should standardize on this now. I think that in the future, we will want tools to browse and edit native htmld, so it would be useful to define a standard name for the internal file.
Finally, if I haven't ranted enough today, let me mention what my code looks like from the other side of the looking glass. I have TeXD documents I produce with laTeX code. I expect that people will have to edit and modify such .texd documents by hand. Thus, I use name.texd/title.tex, where title != name, and it's a mess, since I can only find the tex later on by scanning for .tex files in the directory. Leave the user-visible name on the "outside", and keep machine-readable documents consistent "inside". The normal code shows up in how eText "opens" .htmd (which it owns, right?): eText tacks on an index.html and bounces it back to the Workspace.
Action Item
----------------
In the light of this discussion I propose moving eText to name.htmld/index.html, and scrapping eText's private htmd designation. Sound cool? There seems to be no need for both htmd and htmld.
Sorry if I'm boring the list.... more to come. Another part of htmld might be a requisite .docInfo that indicates how to access the "real" native-format document this htmld version is shadowing.
Rohit
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From: Bill Bumgarner <bbum@friday.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 95 14:46:13 -0600
To: webstep@mail.xent.caltech.edu
Subject: Re: What's in a .htmld or .htmd?
Reply-To: bbum@friday.com
X-A: I ride tandem with the random...
X-B: ...things don't run the way I plan them.
have your cake and eat it to.
form 3 w/ a symbolic link from foo.htmld/foo.html to foo.htmld/index.html.
b.bum
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From: Scott Anguish <sanguish@digifix.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 95 16:13:37 -0500
To: webstep@mail.xent.caltech.edu
Subject: Re: What's in a .htmld or .htmd?
Reply-To: sanguish@digifix.com
References: <199501262046.OAA01692@friday.com>
b.bum said
>
> have your cake and eat it to.
>
> form 3 w/ a symbolic link from foo.htmld/foo.html to foo.htmld/index.html.
>
I agree that this is definately the way to go, however, I'd argue that it is better to use form 1 (or ANY word index,default that is consistent across directories) as the standard, and then if you want to support the same name as folder form 3, then make that link..
I'm arguing for this only form only because form 1 is supported by servers as a default, and form 3 isn't...
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