I definitely would like to see some way of doing multiple GETs with a
single connection. However, the connection costs right now aren't that
great except for the Accept. Perhaps current Accept usage should be
rethought? Several issues to consider are:
1. What are clients currently sending to servers? Lynx only sends a few
Accepts since binary information isn't displayed or manipulated, but saved
to disk. On the other hand, Mosaic for X sends approximately 1K worth.
Here's everything sent out at the start of a typical Lynx transaction.
GET /index.html HTTP/1.0
Accept: www/source
Accept: text/html
User-Agent: Lynx/2.2 libwww/2.14
From: altis@ibeam.intel.com
Other Accept examples are at the end of the message.
2. Since only gif and xbm are used for inline images shouldn't GUI clients
simply send
Accept: image/gif
Accept: image/x-xbm
when fetching <IMG SRC> inlined images? Some GUI clients actually accept
other image types for inlined images, but it is non-standard.
3. Should the transaction be reworked so that the server says I've got this
MIME type, then the client says YES or NO?
4. The number of binary image formats and binary document formats is very
large in the PC and Mac arena. Is it reasonable to assume in most cases
that the document will simply be handed off to an external browser so that:
Accept: application/*
Accept: audio/*
Accept: image/*
is the way to go rather than sending a hundred plus Accept types? The MIME
mapping application/x-excel or whatever would still get sent with the reply
so that the client can still map between the MIME type and an external
application to launch. This assumes we continue to have a central
repository for MIME types so all our x- types match across clients and
servers.
ka
--- Cello doesn't currently send Accept.X Mosaic 2.1 Accept: text/plain Accept: application/x-html Accept: application/html Accept: text/x-html Accept: text/html Accept: application/x-hdf Accept: application/x-netcdf Accept: application/hdf Accept: application/netcdf Accept: audio/basic Accept: audio/x-aiff Accept: image/gif Accept: image/jpeg Accept: image/tiff Accept: image/x-portable-anymap Accept: image/x-portable-bitmap Accept: image/x-portable-graymap Accept: image/x-portable-pixmap Accept: image/x-rgb Accept: image/rgb Accept: image/x-xbitmap Accept: image/x-xpixmap Accept: image/xwd Accept: image/x-xwd Accept: image/x-xwindowdump Accept: video/mpeg Accept: application/postscript Accept: application/x-dvi Accept: message/rfc822 Accept: application/x-latex Accept: application/x-tex Accept: application/x-texinfo Accept: application/x-troff Accept: application/x-troff-man Accept: application/x-troff-me Accept: application/x-troff-ms Accept: text/richtext Accept: text/tab-separated-values Accept: text/x-setext Accept: */*
Windows Mosaic 1.0 Accept: application/pdf Accept: application/x-frame Accept: audio/x-midi Accept: application/x-rtf Accept: video/msvideo Accept: video/qtime Accept: video/mpeg Accept: image/jpeg Accept: image/gif Accept: application/postscript Accept: audio/wav Accept: text/plain Accept: text/html Accept: audio/x-aiff Accept: audio/basic
Mac Mosaic 1.0.3 Accept: text/plain Accept: application/x-html Accept: application/html Accept: text/x-html Accept: text/html Accept: text/richtext Accept: application/octet-stream Accept: application/postscript Accept: application/mac-binhex40 Accept: application/zip Accept: application/macwriteii Accept: application/msword Accept: image/gif Accept: image/jpeg Accept: image/x-pict Accept: image/tiff Accept: image/x-xbm Accept: audio/x-aiff Accept: audio/basic Accept: video/mpeg Accept: video/quicktime Accept: application/macbinary Accept: application/pdf Accept: */*