application/xhtml+xml in IE

[Gustaf]

I just read this article from today:

http://webstandards.org/buzz/archive/2005_09.html

I need some help understanding this sentense:

The W3C recommends XHTML 1.1 should be served with the
application/xhtml+xml MIME type, something that Internet
Explorer does not currently support.

I thought it was the web *server* that serves documents in a certain
MIME type, not the web *browser*. I don't see why it matters whether IE
*knows* it's dealing with XHTML as long as the page is valid, is served
with a correct Content-Type header, and displayed correctly in the browser.

Gustaf

[Benjamin Niemann]

Re: application/xhtml+xml in IE

Gustaf wrote:
[color=blue]
> I just read this article from today:
>
> http://webstandards.org/buzz/archive/2005_09.html
>
> I need some help understanding this sentense:
>
> The W3C recommends XHTML 1.1 should be served with the
> application/xhtml+xml MIME type, something that Internet
> Explorer does not currently support.
>
> I thought it was the web *server* that serves documents in a certain
> MIME type, not the web *browser*. I don't see why it matters whether IE
> *knows* it's dealing with XHTML as long as the page is valid, is served
> with a correct Content-Type header, and displayed correctly in the
> browser.[/color]

It certainly matters, if the document is not displayed at all ;)

IE does not recognize documents *served* as application/xhtml+xml as a
document it could display. It will popup a 'Save as..', 'Open with..' or
dunno dialog, if you try to load such a document. And a XHTML 1.1 document
is not valid, if it is served as text/html - the only MIME type IE
understands (for displaying (X)HTML documents).

Serving XHTML 1.0 as text/html is valid and advocated by the W3C as a
temporary workaround, but many people (including me) think that this is an
ugly, unnecessary hack that should be avoided. XHTML 1.0 has no added value
over HTML 4.01, especially if served as text/html.

--
Benjamin Niemann
Email: pink at odahoda dot de
WWW: http://www.odahoda.de/

[Gustaf]

Re: application/xhtml+xml in IE

Benjamin Niemann wrote:
[color=blue]
> IE does not recognize documents *served* as application/xhtml+xml as a
> document it could display. It will popup a 'Save as..', 'Open with..' or
> dunno dialog, if you try to load such a document.[/color]

That's strange. I started to make the switch to XHTML 1.1, and I have no
problem in IE6 on Windows XP SP2. Maybe the problem you mention occurs
in IE5 (which is bad enough). Can anyone confirm this? I saw that IE6
doesn't include "applicatio n/xhtml+xml" in the "Accept" HTTP header in
the request, but the page still renders properly. Maybe it shouldn't.

For those interested, I wrote a bit on how to write conformant XHTML 1.1
documents (the URL is temporary). Enjoy. :-)

http://gusgus.cn/www/xhtml/authoringxhtml11.html

It looks identical IE and Firefox. In Opera, the <pre> elements are
displayed in a smaller font.

Gustaf

[Darin McGrew]

Re: application/xhtml+xml in IE

Gustaf <gustafl@algone t.se> wrote:[color=blue]
> For those interested, I wrote a bit on how to write conformant XHTML 1.1
> documents (the URL is temporary). Enjoy. :-)
>
> http://gusgus.cn/www/xhtml/authoringxhtml11.html
>
> It looks identical IE and Firefox. In Opera, the <pre> elements are
> displayed in a smaller font.[/color]

Interesting. My copy of MSIE renders it as

File Download

You have chosen to download a file from this location.

authoringxhtml1 1.html from gusgus.cn

What would you like to do with this file?
( ) Open this file from its current location
(*) Save this file to disk

[OK] [Cancel] [More Info]

If I select "Open this file from its current location", then calls Opera to
display the file.
--
Darin McGrew, mcgrew@stanford alumni.org, http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/
Web Design Group, darin@htmlhelp. com, http://www.HTMLHelp.com/

"I used to have a handle on life, but it broke."

[Alan J. Flavell]

Re: application/xhtml+xml in IE

On Thu, 1 Sep 2005, Darin McGrew wrote:
[color=blue]
> Gustaf <gustafl@algone t.se> wrote:[color=green]
> >
> > http://gusgus.cn/www/xhtml/authoringxhtml11.html[/color]
>
> Interesting. My copy of MSIE renders it as
>
> File Download[/color]
[...][color=blue]
> ( ) Open this file from its current location[/color]
[...]

Yup, back with Win/NT4 I configured IE to to use Mozilla to open this
content-type ...
[color=blue]
> If I select "Open this file from its current location", then calls
> Opera to display the file.[/color]

I've no argument with that...

But interestingly, if I try to use MSIE to access the above URL, I get
an alert saying "Your current security settings do not allow this file
to be downloaded".

MSIE always seems to have a new trick up its sleeve.

Maybe you haven't applied the latest MS security fixes? :-}

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Re: application/xhtml+xml in IE

Gustaf <gustafl@algone t.se> wrote:
[color=blue]
> Benjamin Niemann wrote:
>[color=green]
>> IE does not recognize documents *served* as application/xhtml+xml as a
>> document it could display. It will popup a 'Save as..', 'Open with..' or
>> dunno dialog, if you try to load such a document.[/color]
>
> That's strange. I started to make the switch to XHTML 1.1, and I have no
> problem in IE6 on Windows XP SP2. Maybe the problem you mention occurs
> in IE5 (which is bad enough).[/color]

No, it occurs on IE6 as well.
[color=blue]
> I saw that IE6
> doesn't include "applicatio n/xhtml+xml" in the "Accept" HTTP header in
> the request, but the page still renders properly.[/color]

IE6 does not explicitly mention application/xhtml+xml but it includes */*,
which means "anything goes".
[color=blue]
> http://gusgus.cn/www/xhtml/authoringxhtml11.html
>
> It looks identical IE and Firefox.[/color]

Not here. I don't know what is going on, but on IE6 I see a dialog pop up,
then vanish, and the page opens in the browser _but_ with no CSS effects
and with no images, apparently because the browser shows a copy that it has
stored in the Temporary Internet Files folder.

I don't know a way to check what a server sends to IE6 specifically. It
could be something different from what one gets by just talking to the
server at port 80: the response is something like

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Thu, 01 Sep 2005 22:11:04 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.33 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.8.22 OpenSSL/0.9.7e PHP/4.4.0
Last-Modified: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 16:22:23 GMT
ETag: "4bfc82-1a71-431487bf"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 6769
Content-Type: application/xhtml+xml; charset=utf-8

That looks pretty normal, and essentially the same as for XHTML files that
IE6 refuses to open.

But now I notice that if I use the filename suffix .html for an XHTML file,
then I get the same reaction from IE6 as with your document. It seems that
IE6 (on my system at least) automagically downloads the file and opens it
in the browser - but from the temporary folder

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Pages about Web authoring: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www.html

[Gustaf]

Re: application/xhtml+xml in IE

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
[color=blue]
> IE6 does not explicitly mention application/xhtml+xml but it includes */*,
> which means "anything goes".[/color]

Yes, I noticed. My guess is that resources fetched as */* triggers the
File Download dialog. But I still don't understand why I can browse
pages served as "applicatio n/xhtml+xml" in IE6. Am I really alone about
this?

My Windows is fully updated. My version of IE is:

6.0.2900.2180.x psp_sp2_gdr.050 301-1519
[color=blue]
> But now I notice that if I use the filename suffix .html for an XHTML file,
> then I get the same reaction from IE6 as with your document.[/color]

If I use an .xhtml suffix, I get the File Download dialog, like the
others here. (There's a copy of the same document with an .xhtml suffix
at the same place now.)

Gustaf

[Brian]

Re: application/xhtml+xml in IE

Alan J. Flavell wrote:
[color=blue]
> interestingly, if I try to use MSIE to access the above URL, I get an
> alert saying "Your current security settings do not allow this file
> to be downloaded".
>
> MSIE always seems to have a new trick up its sleeve.
>
> Maybe you haven't applied the latest MS security fixes? :-}[/color]

:-D That was just plain mean. And rather funny, too. Thanks for that.

--
Brian

[Henri Sivonen]

Re: application/xhtml+xml in IE

In article <0YmdnbwO1ZVdC4 reRVnyuw@gigane ws.com>,
Gustaf <gustafl@algone t.se> wrote:
[color=blue]
> But I still don't understand why I can browse
> pages served as "applicatio n/xhtml+xml" in IE6. Am I really alone about
> this?[/color]

Do you have the MathPlayer plug-in installed? Or have you tweaked the
registry manually so that application/xhtml+xml becomes an alias for
text/html?

--
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen@iki.fi

http://hsivonen.iki.fi/

Mozilla Web Author FAQ: http://mozilla.org/docs/web-developer/faq.html

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Re: application/xhtml+xml in IE

Gustaf wrote:
[color=blue]
> But I still don't understand why I can browse
> pages served as "applicatio n/xhtml+xml" in IE6. Am I really alone about
> this?[/color]

No, you aren't. Now testing on Win XP SP 2, using IE 6 to access

http://gusgus.cn/www/xhtml/authoringxhtml11.html

opens your document as intended, with styles and images. However, on the
status line I see, for a short time, a message about _loading_ a file,
i.e. a message I don't normally see when accessing a web page.

If I try to access

http://gusgus.cn/www/xhtml/authoringxhtml11.xhtml

I get the dialog. This seems to be the same as your experience.

My conjecture is that IE 6 (on XP) first recognizes the document as
being of an unknown application type (from the HTTP headers, since IE 6
does not grok application/xhtml+xml). Then, after downloading it, it
starts to wonder what to do with it. It uses its usual suffix sniffing
and decides that .html means it's HTML (good old HTML) after all, and
automagically opens it in the browser window - whereas .xhtml is Greek
to it, at least by default.

I guess if I played with the filename suffix association settings in
Windows, IE 6 might open even URLs ending with .xhtml as (good old) HTML
documents. I'm not particularly interested in messing around that,
though, and it wouldn't really be that relevant to HTML authoring for
the WWW - we can't expect users to play such games just to see our
glorious XHTML documents rendered by HTML rules.

[Guy Macon]

Re: application/xhtml+xml in IE




Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
[color=blue]
>No, you aren't. Now testing on Win XP SP 2, using IE 6 to access
>http://gusgus.cn/www/xhtml/authoringxhtml11.html
>opens your document as intended, with styles and images. However, on the
>status line I see, for a short time, a message about _loading_ a file,
>i.e. a message I don't normally see when accessing a web page.
>
>If I try to access
>http://gusgus.cn/www/xhtml/authoringxhtml11.xhtml
>I get the dialog. This seems to be the same as your experience.[/color]

I just tried it on a fresh install of Windows 2000 Advanced Server
with no customization, and with a standard install of Mozilla
Firefox 1.06. IE is 6.0.2800.1106. All security updates are
installed.


WITH FIREFOX
http://gusgus.cn/www/xhtml/authoringxhtml11.xhtml and .html display fine.


WITH INTERNET EXPLORER
http://gusgus.cn/www/xhtml/authoringxhtml11.xhtml and .html display the
same dialog box:

File Download

Some files can harm your computer. If the file information below looks
suspicious, or you do not fully trust the source, do not open or save this
file.

File name: authoringxhtml1 1.html

File Type: FIERFOXHTML (looks like FireFox set up a file association...)

From: gusgus.cn

Would you like to open the file or save it to your computer?

[Open] [Save] {Cancel] [More info] (save is the default)

[ ] Always ask before opening this type of file (selected by default)

Save and Cancel do what you would expect.
More Info pulls up the downloading files section of IE help.
Open displays the page in FireFox with no CSS formatting and a URL of
file:///i:/Documents%20and %20Settings/Administrator/Local%20Setting s/Temporary%20Int ernet%20Files/Content.IE5/8IA23D5F/authoringxhtml1 1%5B1%5D.html

The Always Ask check box is checked and won't stay unchecked.

Adding gusgus.cn to trusted sites in IE does not change the behavior.

[Guy Macon]

Re: application/xhtml+xml in IE




http://gusgus.cn/www/xhtml/authoringxhtml11.html says...

"According to the rules of XML, skipping the XML declaration
is okay only when using either UTF-8 or UTF-16 as character
encoding in the document."

I was under the impression that US-ASCII was OK as well.
Does anyone have a reference for the above?

[Gustaf]

Re: application/xhtml+xml in IE

Guy Macon wrote:
[color=blue]
> "According to the rules of XML, skipping the XML declaration
> is okay only when using either UTF-8 or UTF-16 as character
> encoding in the document."[/color]
[color=blue]
> I was under the impression that US-ASCII was OK as well.
> Does anyone have a reference for the above?[/color]

If the encoding declaration is omitted, XML only admits UTF-8 or UTF-16.

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#charencoding

But you can write pure ASCII documents just fine, since characters in
the ASCII range are encoded the same in UTF-8. That is, you don't need
an XML declaration for pure ASCII documents, since they will be treated
as UTF-8 documents.

Gustaf

[Gustaf]

Re: application/xhtml+xml in IE

Henri Sivonen wrote:
[color=blue]
> Do you have the MathPlayer plug-in installed? Or have you tweaked the
> registry manually so that application/xhtml+xml becomes an alias for
> text/html?[/color]

Of course not. I would have mentioned that.

Gustaf

[Alan J. Flavell]

Re: application/xhtml+xml in IE

On Fri, 2 Sep 2005, Guy Macon wrote:
[color=blue]
> http://gusgus.cn/www/xhtml/authoringxhtml11.html says...
>
> "According to the rules of XML, skipping the XML declaration
> is okay only when using either UTF-8 or UTF-16 as character
> encoding in the document."
>
> I was under the impression that US-ASCII was OK as well.[/color]

US-ASCII is just a special case of utf-8, in this sense: so yes,
that's OK too.[1]

Note that (to use recent Unicode terminology), the "character
encoding" of utf-16 comprises three "character encoding schemes":
utf-16 with BOM (where the byte ordering is discerned by reading the
BOM), utf-16LE and utf-16BE (where the byte ordering is laid down by
the name of the encoding scheme). I rather suspect that only the
first of those three schemes is legal XML without using the ?xml
thingy to specify the encoding (scheme!).
[color=blue]
> Does anyone have a reference for the above?[/color]

I'll leave that to someone who happens to have it at their fingertips,
if you didn't find it yourself.

But the character encoding scheme which is advertised from an HTTP
server via the MIME "charset=" is authoritative, according to RFC2616,
and this attribute should not be omitted according to security alert
CA-2000-02, so the <?xml thingy should really only be getting *used*
in non-HTTP contexts (e.g reading a local file): if the ?xml thingy
specified an encoding in an HTTP context, that evidently needs to be
consistent with what the server's HTTP Content-type header says.[2]

cheers

[1] Amusingly, HTTP rules say that the default is iso-8859-1.

So you can present us-ascii to XML, and allow it to assume that it's
utf-8, and at the same time present it to HTTP and allow -it- to
assume that it's iso-8859-1. and *both of them are correct*, in this
special case ;-)

[2] Readers should not confuse this with any "meta http-equiv"
content-type, which has no meaning as far as XML is concerned.
But you knew that, right?