If you're talking about content negotiation in the way I think you are (by the values passed to the server in the 'Accept' HTTP header) and not by getting the value of the 'User-Agent' HTTP header, then I'm all for it.
One of my recent thoughts was to check if the UA had 'text/xml' or 'application/xhtml+xml' in the Accept header, and sending them back the appropriate mime-type for XHTML, while everyone else gets text/html. I'd even thought of going to the length of using PHP's output buffering to rewrite the XHTML into HTML4 for the text/html version so that it's totally valid, but that just seems like way too much work for so little gain :) (also, the W3C validator doesn't send an Accept header, so it would be getting HTML4 - still valid, but not exactly ideal to say a site is valid XHTML then have the W3C say it's HTML4 :)) To me, this doesn't seem like a hack at all, it is exactly what the Accept header is for - serving up different content types depending on what the browser (says) it supports. I'm sure you could also do the same with XML, and either send XML plus a stylesheet to UAs that support it, and do a server-side transform to HTML for those that don't (There are probably a number of flaws in this though (probably the biggest being that you'd have to write two versions of your presentation code), and I'll be stuufed if I can think of a single reason *to* do it apart from the 'hey, cool, I can do it' factor) /me should get back to work now... -- Lindsay Evans. Developer, Red Square Productions. [p] 8596.4000 [f] 8596.4001 [w] www.redsquare.com.au > -----Original Message----- > From: Ben Boyle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Thursday, 9 October 2003 10:02 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [WSG] Targeting IE5 > > > I would have thought the best way to target a browser (be it IE5 or other) > was content negotiation. Detect the browser and serve content in the > appropriate format. Does anyone else get the feeling this technique is > rarely used whilst cruder methods proliferate? > > IMHO, web servers can do a lot more than just serve files and should be > exploited for all they are worth - and that's plenty. I feel this > cornerstone of the web is oft overlooked, much to the detriment of the > online experience when cruder technologies are called on to compensate. > > Maybe it's just too difficult for developers to get access to webserver > configuration, or too tedious to produce content in multiple > formats? Gotta > weight that against the time and effort we've all invested in workarounds > and hacks though ... The right tool for the job. One can't solve every > problem with a hammer. > > cheers > Ben > > ***************************************************** > The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ > ***************************************************** > ***************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ *****************************************************
