RFC #1 specifies the standard content and form of an .htmld document wrapper.
An .htmld document encapsulates all of the resources for a single index.html
document; including slight variations of format (index-imaged-elements.html)
or name (foobar.htmld/foobar.html).
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RATIONALE
OpenStep relies extensively on the use of "wrappers": .app wrappers, and
application-defined .doc wrappers. While NeXT has registered .htmld as a
standard extension for HTML-based documents, there are several design choices
involved in building an interoperable .htmld
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SPECIFICATION
Foobar.htmld MUST CONTAIN
* index.html
it MAY CONTAIN
* alternate indices of the same html content (index-ascii.html,
index-imaged-elements.html)
* supporting files referenced from the index
* application-specific data (.linkdb, .etDocInfo, other state)
The HTML used MUST CONFORM TO:
* HTML2.0 document structuring conventions
* HTML2.0 Document Type Definitions
- no obsoleted tags (<XMP>)
- valid <HEAD> elements
- HTML2.0 entities for all characters defined by HTML2.0
* HTML3.0 entity maps for upper characters and foreign languages
(preliminary numbering scheme available from
http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/MarkUp/HTMLPlus/htmlplus_58.html)
* This RFC does not recognize any other markup standards; however,
it should not be construed to probhibit extensions.
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CONFORMANCE TESTING
For .htmld authoring tools:
* Output hmtl must at least conform to strict HTML2 DTD checking (see
http://www.hal.com/~connolly/html-spec/, particularly
http://www.hal.com/~connolly/html-test/service/validation-form.html)
* Documents should be movable intact across filesystems and machines.
For browsers/clients:
* Must be able to "open" .htmld by tacking on "index.html", not by
displaying the .htmld as a directory listing.
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EXAMPLE IMPLEMENTATIONS
Pages1.7 app is conformant
eText .95 will be conformant (change extension from .htmd to .htmld)
Most web servers (CERN, NCSA) are conformant (automatically tack on
index.html for directories, or some configrabel Welcome.html)
It is not known if OmniWeb or SpiderWoman is conformant.
NeXT's .htmld appears to use a conflicting naming scheme
StepWise .htmld does not support the "one-document" guideline, but is
strictly conformant.