Re: FTP & MIME for .wrl transfers

Thomas D. Citriniti ([email protected])
Tue, 02 May 1995 07:47:18 +22295807

> Let's just talk about ftp transfers and how the web browser
> recognizes the type...
>
> I'm intrigued by this, since I know I'm not the only one
> on this list who's having trouble motivating various
> Web administrators to add world/vrml MIME type recognition
> to their httpd server.
>
> I think it does seem that an ftp-located .wrl would work.
>
> It also doesn't seem that such a file would need the
> MIME header either, right? (that would be pretty easy to do
> anyhow.)
>
> Adrian
>

When a browser downloads a file via the FTP method, it does not get a MIME
header type from the FTP server. It then falls onto the browser to decide
which application to attach to the file extension. Some of the common MIME
types are mapped in the browser when it is shipped, and you can add extensions
to the browser to handle any file type as long as the server is not defining
the MIME type when the file is downloaded. We use the FILE method to access
certain files and launch local programs to read and interpret them, these file
extensions are only mapped into the mime.types file for the browser. This
allows Professors to create interactive text based HTML documents.

My 2 cents.

Tom C.

======= Thomas D. Citriniti =========== | Mngr. User services for the VLSC
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