Re: lynx-dev Lynx 2.7.1 and 2.8 refuse to render certain HTML documents

[Foteos Macrides]

address@hidden (Jason F. McBrayer) wrote:
>>>>>> "HS" == Heather Stern <address@hidden> writes:
>
>HS> The server having stated it wants text/plain, Lynx is honoring it...
>
>As it should.
>
>HS> I'd say this is a server misconfig, and the site's unix or Apache
>HS> distribution bug that its default config is broken, or maybe a bug
>HS> in their sysadmin :) ... but we could probably add a user override
>HS> option to assume that URLs ending in .htm and .html should always
>HS> be rendered.
>
>That would be a very bad thing to do.  There are constant complaints
>on comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html about the fact that MSIE does
>that.  In any case, file names, URLs, and file types are three
>separate things, and we shouldn't do anything that would conflate the
>three any more than absolutely necessary.  Using file extensions for
>file typing is an abomination, and since the web has a perfectly
>satisfactory alternative (mime types), we should do file typing the
>right way.  It _is_ reasonable to assume that the server is
>misconfigured, but that's a matter for the sysmonster, not for Lynx to
>handle, since Lynx can't know what was really intended.  For example,
>a site might send some HTML files as text/plain as sample code that is
>meant to be viewed unrendered for educational purposes; trying to
outsmart the server would break that.

        That's entirely correct for http, but for that ftp problem that
was reported it might be a good idea to add an HTSetSuffix() for ".arj"
in HTInit.c for the benefit of captive users who cannot add a suffix map
themselves in mime.types or lynx.cfg for ftp servers, which do not declare
a MIME type themselves.  The effort has been to make the initializations
in HTInit.c as complete as possible, and maps have been added there
whenever reports like that other one came up.

        Lynx does have a force_html mode, for cases in which the user
knows that the MIME type based on suffix maps would be wrong, but
at present it's only useable as a command line switch (and of course
Lynx should not normally override a Content-Type header from an http
server).

        When Lynx is being used for ftp, if the default to text/plain
occurs for a binary file, one should use 'd'ownload instead of
ACTIVATE to retrieve it properly.  How bad are the effects of sending
the contents of a binary file to your screen will depend on what's
in the file, on your particular terminal or emulator, and the nature
of your connection.  When retrieving a binary file with Lynx via a
STARTFILE argument, you should include the appropriate switches as
well, regardless of whether there's an appropriate suffix map, because
that's more efficient.

                                Fote
-- 
Foteos Macrides (address@hidden during April, '98)