Sean Conner sean at conman.org
Mon Mar 1 21:24:43 GMT 2021
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It was thus said that the Great Thomas Frohwein once stated:
On Mon, Mar 01, 2021 at 10:12:18AM +0000, Caolan McMahon wrote:
[...]
2. Knowing the content type upfront would allow clients to present streaming
data correctly using appropriate colours and escape codes for code
highlighting, for example.
A solution to a problem of its own making.
Sorry, I don't follow this point.
IMO escape codes are a hack, and universal client support can't be
expected. In fact, those may break different terminal/client types.
I think color escape codes should not be considered expected with
clients. In fact, there should probably a discussion if this should be
discouraged in the spec.
I've talked on this before (several times in fact) and my stance is thatcontrols codes aside from HTAB, CR and LF should not be used in text/gemini. There's the issue that "color escape codes" are an artifact or side effectof a terminal-based Gemini browser and it can't be relied to even exist inthe graphical browsers that are popping up. Then there's the securityissue---there are escape codes that can reprogram the keyboard, and althoughthe usage is rare, it is possible. There are also escape codes that canresize the window and reposition the window, and there's no telling whatstate the terminal can end in.
While I would like to disallow control codes in the specification, thatmight be too big of a change, and *will* affect some sites, but addingverbiage that discourages it can be added.
-spc