Re: [office] auto-play presentation file format like PPS - MIMEtype parameter

Hi David,

On Monday, 2008-04-07 11:41:32 -0400, David A. Wheeler wrote:

> I propose the following, to be added to the end of the "MIME Type Stream" section of the ODF document:
> "If the top-level document has a non-default 'autoplay' value, then the MIME type SHOULD have "; autoplay=" followed immediately by the autoplay value (such as "view"), creating a MIME parameter.

Doing so may actually create incompatibilities with existing software
that reads the mimetype file's content and determines whether it
_equals_ a registered MIME type. Trailing parameters would cause
a mismatch then.

Furthermore, in an unpackaged document ("flat" XML file) the MIME type
is an attribute office:mimetype of the <office:document> element, see
section "2.1.2 Document Root Attributes" of ODF 1.1, so the same
parameter option would had to be applied there.

Though RFC 2045 ff. explicitly permit parameter options I don't think
that those RFCs meant for mail header fields apply here. ODF 1.1 AFAIK
does not mention anywhere that the mimetype attribute would follow the
RFC 204x specifications for the Content-Type header field, so it might
come as a surprise to some if it now would.

I think not changing the mimetype content is vital for the recognition
of ODF document types.

  Eike

-- 
 OpenOffice.org Engineering at Sun: http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS