[tei-council] [TEI-L] application/tei+xml redux (fwd)

David Sewell dsewell at virginia.edu
Wed Mar 10 18:33:35 EST 2010


I have just replied to Brett about his TEI-L message, noting that 
Council did reverse its original decision and last December approved 
applying for a MIME type. Cf. 
http://lists.village.virginia.edu/pipermail/tei-council/2009/011465.html 
and other messages following. Sigfrid Lundberg had volunteered to 
determine how to fill out the IANA application but obviously has not 
done so. Someone on Council or Board should be the formal submitter, but 
maybe you could delegate Brett to help with completion of the 
application?

David


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:36:51 +0800
From: Brett Zamir <brettz9 at YAHOO.COM>
To: TEI-L at listserv.brown.edu
Subject: [TEI-L] application/tei+xml redux

To resurrect an old (and I know, already settled) question, I think I may have found a good use for
application/tei+xml after all.

I am currently working on proposing/developing a modification of METS which can be used not only to download
a set of TEI files in the browser and with stylesheets (as well as XQuery like mentioned in my other recent
post, etc.), but also potentially supply XSLT files without TEI or XML, such as TEI's own stylesheets, and
allow them to register themselves as content handlers for application/tei+xml content encountered on the web
and/or as namespace handlers which could operate within any documents containing the TEI namespace (such as
embedded within XHTML).

This might even operate at an individual tag level (e.g., to replace native XHTML buttons with one's own
HTML5 "canvas"-drawn element or, in the case of TEI, to override the default styling provided by Sebastian's
stylesheets for certain tags).

Thus, TEI files in the browser could be shown (by default) in one standard format across web pages, at least
if they were not pre-styled by the author, with the major bonus of the user not needing to re-download the
same standard stylesheets, especially when visiting a new TEI-hosting site, after they had obtained the
stylesheets just once from any page as long as it registered itself as a TEI content handler (though since
multiple content handlers could be registered, TEI's own stylesheets would not need to be the only choice
out there when viewing TEI and users could switch between handlers for specific pages). The overhead of
client-side XSL would be obviated greatly by not having to transfer the often large stylesheet files across
the web upon each new site visit; the only extra overhead compared to regular XHTML would be the internal
conversion made by the browser (which is very little in comparison to network transmission).

The manifest file within the file package containing the stylesheets could also indicate an update URL which
could be checked for new updates to the stylesheets.

I think this could remove the primary barrier to serving TEI directly on the web and having it be directly
viewed without long delays.

Besides TEI, other experimental or alternative formats like Markdown, ODF, localized XHTML (e.g.,
http://bahai-library.com/zamir/chintest9.xml  ) could become possible and practical if applied in other
browsers and by default.

What do people think of this?

Brett


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