[JDEV] Rich Text in Messages

Tue Dec 19 21:23:31 CST 2000

> > Well, if rich text is so universally essential for a good user experience,
> > then why isn't it the default message format?  Shouldn't it be?
> 
> It should be.  There should be a standard syntax and clients should strip
> anything they don't want to handle.  Session based compression should be used
> to allow bandwidth to be minimized.
> 
> sdw

/me prepares for a fun discussion...

Clients should not have to know _anything_ about XHTML("rich text") in order
to display message, IMHO. Hence the <body> tag only contains plain text. If
you start requring that clients know how to strip out XHTML, you wind up
requiring that they _know_ about XHTML and hey, presto -- instant client bloat.

The feature negotiation setup is an interesting approach. I would suggest that 
embedding display/rich text capabilities with the <presence> packet that a client
sends out would be a good way for this to work..

In theory, a client could embed extended feature support in its outbound
<presence> updates:

<presence>
      <x xmlns='jabber:x:capabilities'>
            <xhtml-message/>
            ...
      </x>
</..>

That would allow other clients to get pushed the proper information -- no 
compliated semantics for request/respond stuff (although that's easy enough
through <iq>) I just like the concept of having capability information pushed. :)

D.