I suggest we use MIME, the internet standard for multimedia messaging,
in the various internet information system; specifically, I request
that WWW server announcements use MIME to designate HTML in mail/news
messages.
To illustrate, I include an annoucement recently sent to www-announce.
The announcement was prefaced with:
The announcement comes both as a text file and a html file, to access the
html version cut out everything between the rows of dashes and save as
a file, then use your web reader to access it as a local document
I have added MIME headers to that message to make these intentions
machine readable. Any reader with a MIME mail user agent (and there
are many: PINE, Eudora..., and soon there will be many more) can
use their mailer to carry out the above instructions.
I request that the maintainers of www-announce, whats-new,
comp.infosystems.announce, and related services support MIME by making
MIME documentation and examples available to their contributors. This
will increase the value and usablility of these postings, and
(eventually) decrease the amount of hand-work for the list maintainers
and for readers around the globe.
[Note: this is not a new idea. I first suggested it in
July, 1992...
From: connolly@convex.com (Dan Connolly)
Subject: MIME for global hypertext
Message-ID: <1992Jun7.042358.29367@news.eng.convex.com>
Sender: usenet@news.eng.convex.com (news access account)
Organization: Engineering, CONVEX Computer Corp., Richardson, Tx., USA
Date: 07 Jun 1992 04:23:58 (19920607042358)
]
--mixed
Content-Type: message/rfc822
Date: Mon, 5 Sep 1994 16:21:15 +0200
Message-Id: <5607.9409051113@link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk>
From: zcapj20 <zcapj20@ucl.ac.uk>
To: Multiple recipients of list <www-announce@www0.cern.ch>
Subject: Announcement
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="alt"
The announcement comes both as a text file and a html file, to access the
html version cut out everything between the rows of dashes and save as
a file, then use your web reader to access it as a local document
--alt
The Human Cognition Research Lab at the Open University, UK would like
to make the following known:-
A Virtual Summer School is being run this month by The
Human Cognition Research Laboratory at the UK's Open
University. The summer school enables students of Cognitive
Pscyhology to participate in group discussions and tutorials via <a
Internet Videoconferencing, and to run experiments, conduct
literature searches, undertake statistical analyses, and of course
socialize and chit-chat, all without leaving their homes. The
Human Cognition Research Laboratory undertakes a combination
of basic and applied research in Artificial Intelligence (AI),
Knowedge Engineering, Cognitive Science, and Human Computer
Interaction (particularly program visualization). The long-term
goal of this research is to understand the fundamental processes
of cognition, and to exploit this understanding where appropriate
in the design of complex software systems. The Open University,
now in its 25th year, is arguably the grand-daddy of all distance
teaching educational establishments... have a look at the
experimental Open University Home Page.
Virtual Summer School Page
http://hcrl.open.ac.uk/virtualsummer.html
HCRL Home Page
http://hcrl.open.ac.uk/
OU Home Page
http://hcrl.open.ac.uk/ou/ouhome.html
Internet Video Conferencing
http://www.ludvigsen.dhhalden.no/webdoc/video.html
--alt
Content-Type: text/html
<Title>Human Cognition Research Lab @ Open University, UK</title>
<h1>Human Cognition Research Lab, Open University, UK</h1>
A <a href="http://hcrl.open.ac.uk/virtualsummer.html">Virtual
Summer School</a> is being run this month by The
<a href="http://hcrl.open.ac.uk/">Human Cognition Research
Laboratory</a> at the UK's
<a href="http://hcrl.open.ac.uk/ou/ouhome.html">Open
University</a>. The summer school enables students of Cognitive
Pscyhology to participate in group discussions and tutorials via
<a href="http://www.ludvigsen.dhhalden.no/webdoc/video.html">
Internet Videoconferencing</a>, and to run experiments, conduct
literature searches, undertake statistical analyses, and of course
socialize and chit-chat, all without leaving their homes. The
Human Cognition Research Laboratory undertakes a combination
of basic and applied research in Artificial Intelligence (AI),
Knowedge Engineering, Cognitive Science, and Human Computer
Interaction (particularly program visualization). The long-term
goal of this research is to understand the fundamental processes
of cognition, and to exploit this understanding where appropriate
in the design of complex software systems. The Open University,
now in its 25th year, is arguably the grand-daddy of all distance
teaching educational establishments... have a look at the
<a href="http://hcrl.open.ac.uk/ou/ouhome.html">experimental Open
University Home Page</a>.
<hr>
<address>
<post>HCRL-WEBMASTER@OPEN.AC.UK</post>
</address>
--alt--
-Simon Masterton
a.k.a. s.j.masterton@open.ac.uk
a.k.a. hcrl-webmaster@open.ac.uk
--mixed--