[JDEV] Rich Text in Messages

Wed Dec 20 13:04:18 CST 2000

DJ Adams wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Dec 19, 2000 at 08:23:31PM -0700, Dave Smith wrote:
> 
> > /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
> 
> Totally agree.
> 
> > embedding display/rich text capabilities with the <presence> packet that a client
> [...]
> > <presence>
> >       <x xmlns='jabber:x:capabilities'>
> >             <xhtml-message/>
> >             ...
> > 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. :)
> >
> 
> IMHO <presence> should be for presence, and feature discovery should be
> done with iq; there's a namespace that nearly fits the bill -
> jabber:iq:version. I wouldn't look forward to '<presence> bloat' that
> would happen if we did start adding extensions to it. There is a fine
> balancing trick between matching what you (as a client) need and what you
> want, with push and pull.

I strongly disagree.  Presence should include capabilities.  The alternative
is very inefficient since essentially every user would have to query every
other user and this might determine if they wanted to have a conversation in
the first place.  Imagine that you only spoke Spanish (an alternate problem
and good placeholder for a desired technical ability, like 'supports GSM
audio'), when you enter a group chat or do a directory search, you're going to
want to filter for other people who have a 'Spanish' capability.

A better example would be that you are looking for someone to participate in a
multi-user game and need to know who else is also running that game. 
Insisting on polling for this kind of thing makes the system unusable and
unextendable.

If the concensus is that plain text is the least common denominator, that's
not too bad, although it's not 'competitive' with the commercial
heavyweights.  Even cell phones have the hardware to do bold or italics text. 
Allowing it to be a capability allows both viewpoints.

> That will be 2 pence please ;-)
> 
> dj
> 
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sdw
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