[JDEV] Rich Text in Messages

Mon Dec 11 12:28:41 CST 2000

From: "Max Horn" <max at quendi.de>
Subject: Re: [JDEV] Rich Text in Messages
> Why would it break any older clients??? We use XML for Jabber exactly
> because it *will not* break any older clients - unless the client
> author is somehow... strange, i.e. can't read specs.

  There is currently *NO* <html> or <xhtml> tag specified in the currently
implemented DTD.

  I probrably phrased that wrong earlier.  It would not break existing
clients, as they would simply ignore this tag.  However, as was said
earlier, if we ever hope to be able to validate the Jabber DTD's, we cannot
simply add tags.  The minute a client does start validating the schema, it
will lead to issues..

> Jabber is XML based. Any jabber client must be able to parse XML. If
> it encounters an unknown tag inside a jabber message, it should not
> die or whatever, but instead just ignore it!

  Again, as was said earlier during the argument of validating the xhtml
DTD, you can't change the DTD underneath the feet of clients all the time.
Just like we can't change the html tag to be an x tag, we can't 'add' new
tags to the Jabber DTD whenever the whim comes up.  If we could, we could
just as well modify the xhtml DTD to allow a top level 'x' tag..  :-P

> ><x xmlns="jabber:x:xhtml>
> ><html xmlns=="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
> >All Me XHTML Data
> ></html>
> ></x>
> >     This would allow the messages to be validatable by both DTD's, and
life
> >is all happy.
> Hm, well, it is sort of a kludge, but would propably work... only
> question is, is this really needed?

  Well, depends on how you look at it.  We talked about 'ever being able to
validate the Jabber DTD'.  If that is a goal, then yes, it is.  If we don't
care about validating the XML, then we can simply add tags to our hearts
content..  :-)