Embedding of Mime parts

Daniel Dardailler ([email protected])
Fri, 13 Jan 1995 17:03:51 +0100


Hello, I'm new to this group, and I'd like to know if work has already
been done or is going on on this subject.

The problem is the following: how to convey thru a mailcap file that
the rendering of a given part (an image, like a jpg, a movie, like an
mpg, or the output of an application, like postscript), is to be done
in a sub-window of the browser/mailer, rather than in its own external
viewer toplevel.

In the context of the Web, I'd like to be able to say in my HTML
document:

<IMG SRC="http://host/path/foo.mpeg">

and have the browser side display that stuff, whatever it is,
*inline*, not in another window.

I don't want the browser to do it itself, I'd like to be able to
configure my mailcap file on the browser side with something like:

video/mpeg : mpeg_play_embed %s %E
application/postscript : ghostview_embed %s %E

where %E (E for Embedded_info) could be the id of the window (a
browser sub-window) where the rendering is to happen.

I'm not sure if an extension of rfc1524 (mailcap syntax) is needed, or
if a set of conventions would be enough.

There is a whole set of issues wrt embedding in a window system (at
least in X), going from session management (how to tell the embedded
app to go away, to come back, etc) up to geometry negociations, and I
don't want to ignore these, but I think that a generic way to initiate
embedding is needed to start with.

Comments ?

Daniel Dardailler | Email : [email protected]
X Consortium, Inc. | Phone : (617) 374 1000 x133
One Memorial Drive | Fax : (617) 374 1025
CAMBRIDGE, MA 02142-1301 | URL "http://www.x.org/people/daniel"