Keith Devens .com - Weblog: Mozilla doesn't incrementally load XHTML documents

Wednesday, November 9, 2005

Mozilla doesn't incrementally load XHTML documents

Mozilla Web Author FAQ (via Anne). If a page is served as XHTML:

The document is not loaded and rendered incrementally. That is, the document is displayed only after the entire document has been received and parsed. Contrary to a common misguided assertion, this is not done in response to a requirement set forth in any W3C specification. In particular, the XML specification does not require the entire document to be checked for errors before rendering can start. The lack of incremental loading and display is simply a bug (or a missing feature).

Also see Anne's post on the Mozilla FAQ on 'application/xhtml+xml'. Incremental loading doesn't seem to be supported in 1.5 either.

Permalink | 2 Comments | Tags: linkblog, Programming | id 7559

05:51 (utc-5)

Comments

Lincoln wrote:

I wouldn't call it a bug as much as a feature. Why render the beginning of a page then blank it out as soon as an error occurs. Just let it be known up front. This holds true especially with fast connections.

∴ Lincoln | 9-Nov-2005 2:23pm est | #8634

Why render the beginning of a page then blank it out as soon as an error occurs.

Incremental rendering is handy to have in general since it makes the page display sooner. But you're right that it would be jarring if, if there is an error, the page turns from being partially rendered into a big error message.

I've been working from a modem connection often lately, so this issue is a little dearer to me than it would have been otherwise

∴ Keith | 9-Nov-2005 4:35pm est | http://keithdevens.com/ | #8637

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