[JDEV] Re: formatted text -- clickable URLs, query other clients' capabilities

[Jay R. Curry]

The feature of a clickable URL is generally a feature of the receiving client, not the 
sending client. I.e. If I include a URL in the form http://www.beresourceful.net in a 
message to another Jabber user, the ability to see that URL as a clicable link depends 
upon the client's ability to interpret that link as a URL, not the ability of the sender to 
format it as <a href="http://www.beresourceful.net">a link to the beresourceful.net 
website</a> 

The ability to use a URL reference also depends upon how the jabber client interacts 
with other tools on the client's machine. Or how feature full the client is itself. If the URL 
can be clicked and the client directly access the web site, either it has an html 
interpreter built in, or is using a html engine library on the platform it is being executed 
on. If it launches an external browser, it is using a feature of the client's platform, or the 
client has a configuration option to launch a user specified or found web browser.

If you decide to build your bot so that it does send formated html, using <h1>header</
h1> tags, or <a href="jabber://rusty@beresourceful.net">links</a> you need to be 
aware that not every recipient's client may be able to interpret that formating or linking 
properly. 

Worse, it is possible that your bot may link to resources 
<img src="http://www.beresourceful.net/images/BeResourceful.jpg"> that some 
recipients would not even welcome. As a result, there are people who might end up 
considering your bot to be completely unwelcome.

In an effort to clarify things a bit, I do not personally approve of html being embeded in 
messages that are sent to me. In fact if I find out that a client that I am using defaults to 
recieving and interpreting html tags, without offering me the ability to turn them off, I will 
find another client to use.

Best of wishes to you in the new year.

-Rusty

"Michael Rothwell" <rothwell at holly-springs.nc.us> wrote:
>The Jabber client available at Jabber.com, and WinJAB, both seem to support 
clickable URLs in chat messages. I'm writing a bot with Net::Jabber and would like to 
have the URLs in the messages it sends be clickable. I don't know how to do that -- does 
anyone else?
>
>Also, I'd like to be able to query a client fro my client (bot) to see what it supports -- 
rich text, headlines, etc. Again, I'm stumped. Can anyone help?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Michael
>
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