MIME and HTRQ/V1.0 question

Marc Andreessen (marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu)
Wed, 19 May 93 14:09:24 -0500


Tony Sanders writes:
> When returning a document of unknown content what should the header
> format say?
>
> Options as I see it are:
>
> 1 Content-type: text/plain\n\n[raw data]
>
> 2 Context-type: text/html\n\n<PLAINTEXT>\n[raw data]
> [Is <PLAINTEXT> being depreciated?]
>
> 3 Context-type: application/binary [for binary files and]
> Context-type: text/plain [for text files]

Yes (3). When in complete doubt, punt to an octet-stream.

> I'm assuming option #3 unless I hear otherwise. It will work well
> if browers do something like <PLAINTEXT> for text/plain and
> pop up a save file dialog for application/binary.
>
> Marc: How is Mosaic going to handle things like .cave files?
> are there going to be MIME types added for stuff like this?

I figure application/x-cave will be enough. People outside NCSA/EVL
probably don't need to think about this particular one, its presence
in the Mosaic code notwithstanding, but the same issue will come up
repeatedly all over the place and the answer should almost always be
an experimental (x-) MIME content subtype.

Cheers,
Marc

--
Marc Andreessen
Software Development Group
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu