Merging our Media Types

Lex Spoon lex at cc.gatech.edu
Tue Mar 30 17:35:00 UTC 1999


Mark Guzdial <guzdial at cc.gatech.edu> wrote:
> 
> I'm considering creating some kind of MediaType class that can be
> associated with file types and provide functionality for these various
> situations.  I don't think it's enough to just do MIME, though MIME is
a
> good subset or starting set.  The problem is that we're also inventing
new
> media types (like SqueakyPages), so I think we need a more flexible
system.
> 
> Comments?  Is somebody doing something like this already?
> 

Standardization here would be nice!

There are two databases along these lines that seem to make sense:

	1. one mapping file extensions into a MIME-like type, ie "gif" -->
"image/gif"

	2. one mapping MIME-like types into functionality.  For instance, how
do you deal with a GIF file?



For the first,  "MIMEDocument guessTypeFromName: aString" seems like a
pretty good interface.  It's central, it asks exactly the question that
is needed, and it isn't tied to any particular application.  It's
lacking, however, a way for people to add new types by using a
changeset.

For the second database, there is nothing in the image right now. 
However, it's also not so clear-cut exactly what this should do.  Is it
even possible to define "functionality" which would be usable by both
the file lister and a web browser?  How do you deal with ".cs" files,
for instance?


Finally, one comment: MIME already does allow experimental types which
start with "x-".  In fact, audio/x-midi was in use for a long time
before audio/midi became standardized.  So it seems like we could use
things like x-squeak/x-squeakpage and thus stay with MIME proper, if we
want.

Lex





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