Comments on: Firefox 2.0 breaks client-side XSL for RSS and Atom feeds http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds It's all spinning wheels and self-doubt until the first pot of coffee. Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:23:09 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0-alpha By: Stephen http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds/comment-page-1#comment-335740 Stephen Mon, 17 Mar 2008 01:49:33 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds#comment-335740 <p>my last post should say "link tag". hard to understand without that bit of information!</p> my last post should say “link tag”. hard to understand without that bit of information!

]]> By: Stephen http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds/comment-page-1#comment-335739 Stephen Mon, 17 Mar 2008 01:48:19 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds#comment-335739 <p>i found that when an absolute URL is used for the tag in FF 2.0.0.12 (maybe elsewhere) the specified XSL stylesheet is ignored. remove the http:// in the tag and the styling comes back. very annoying. removing the tag seems to be the solution.</p> i found that when an absolute URL is used for the tag in FF 2.0.0.12 (maybe elsewhere) the specified XSL stylesheet is ignored. remove the http:// in the tag and the styling comes back. very annoying. removing the tag seems to be the solution.

]]> By: Jim Gray http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds/comment-page-1#comment-196163 Jim Gray Fri, 06 Jul 2007 23:39:30 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds#comment-196163 <p>I resisted upgrading to FF 2.0 for quite awhile and just took the plunge. I've very disappointed that Firefox took this route of overriding XLST. I like Gan, I spent quite awhile designing an XLST stylesheet to render Quikonnex.com produced feeds in a user readable format to include providing many quick subscribe links for popular aggregators. At least IE7 allows for their default view to be turned off. Firefox and Safari do not even provide an option.</p> <p>AND... the options Firefox provides: Live Bookmarks, Google, Yahoo, and Bloglines. Who did they sell out to?</p> I resisted upgrading to FF 2.0 for quite awhile and just took the plunge. I’ve very disappointed that Firefox took this route of overriding XLST. I like Gan, I spent quite awhile designing an XLST stylesheet to render Quikonnex.com produced feeds in a user readable format to include providing many quick subscribe links for popular aggregators. At least IE7 allows for their default view to be turned off. Firefox and Safari do not even provide an option.

AND… the options Firefox provides: Live Bookmarks, Google, Yahoo, and Bloglines. Who did they sell out to?

]]> By: Jeff Wilkinson http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds/comment-page-1#comment-101471 Jeff Wilkinson Wed, 14 Mar 2007 20:29:34 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds#comment-101471 <p>what a pain. fixing this will definitely get my vote. I do some things in XSL stylesheets beyond just showing the straight feed text, so overriding it just blows all that away. Grr.</p> <p>They should definitely show the user's stylesheet if one is spec'd, and only use their own if there is none defined from the RSS/XML.</p> <p>fwiw, here's the one feed that's broken by this: http://www.centralpc.org/sermons/sermons.xml</p> what a pain. fixing this will definitely get my vote. I do some things in XSL stylesheets beyond just showing the straight feed text, so overriding it just blows all that away. Grr.

They should definitely show the user’s stylesheet if one is spec’d, and only use their own if there is none defined from the RSS/XML.

fwiw, here’s the one feed that’s broken by this:
http://www.centralpc.org/sermons/sermons.xml

]]> By: Gan Uesli Starling http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds/comment-page-1#comment-87520 Gan Uesli Starling Thu, 22 Feb 2007 10:22:23 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds#comment-87520 <p>Yes, this is MOST annoying. I had put off writing a feed waiting until the formats should settle out. I ended up delaying first until Atom 1.0, and then longer yet until I should have some free time...until just a couple of weeks ago. Then, working in Firefox 1.5.0.1 I blissfully labored over an XSLT to go with it. Spent quite a while at that. Only when I have it working pretty much as desired do I bother to check it at work in IE7...and ARGHHH!...all my time and effort wasted.</p> <p>And oh, by the way, I had also written a howto for Atom 1.0...and XSLT. So I search GOOGLE high and low until I find someone who writes of how to turn the feature off in IE7...and ammend my howto for that instruction. Now I must do so for Firefox 2.0...and Safari...it seems. Alas and alack.</p> <p>How about Opera? I recall from some years back that Opera was among the first and best of early adopters for XSLT. It looks as if my howto for Atom 1.0 and XSLT is going to be largely composed of workarounds for this mis-feature.</p> Yes, this is MOST annoying. I had put off writing a feed waiting until the formats should settle out. I ended up delaying first until Atom 1.0, and then longer yet until I should have some free time…until just a couple of weeks ago. Then, working in Firefox 1.5.0.1 I blissfully labored over an XSLT to go with it. Spent quite a while at that. Only when I have it working pretty much as desired do I bother to check it at work in IE7…and ARGHHH!…all my time and effort wasted.

And oh, by the way, I had also written a howto for Atom 1.0…and XSLT. So I search GOOGLE high and low until I find someone who writes of how to turn the feature off in IE7…and ammend my howto for that instruction. Now I must do so for Firefox 2.0…and Safari…it seems. Alas and alack.

How about Opera? I recall from some years back that Opera was among the first and best of early adopters for XSLT. It looks as if my howto for Atom 1.0 and XSLT is going to be largely composed of workarounds for this mis-feature.

]]> By: i.have.no.com http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds/comment-page-1#comment-55964 i.have.no.com Wed, 06 Dec 2006 00:15:37 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds#comment-55964 <p><strong>Firefox Feed View overrides XSLT stylesheets in XML documents...</strong></p> <p>Just came to do some xsl transforms on a few rss feeds and was a bit pissed to find that the Firefox developers apparently know better and default to there own stylesheets for rss…. why they don’t check for xml-stylesheet type=”text/...</p> Firefox Feed View overrides XSLT stylesheets in XML documents…

Just came to do some xsl transforms on a few rss feeds and was a bit pissed to find that the Firefox developers apparently know better and default to there own stylesheets for rss…. why they don’t check for xml-stylesheet type=”text/…

]]> By: Firefox 2.0 breaks client-side XSL for web feeds « Lee Kelleher http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds/comment-page-1#comment-53337 Firefox 2.0 breaks client-side XSL for web feeds « Lee Kelleher Sat, 25 Nov 2006 12:45:37 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds#comment-53337 <p>[...] for my FeedBurner feed! (more about it here) » « 14:45 25/11/06 · permalink · linklog, rants, rss,xslt [...]</p> [...] for my FeedBurner feed! (more about it here) » « 14:45 25/11/06 · permalink · linklog, rants, rss,xslt [...]

]]> By: Aristotle Pagaltzis http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds/comment-page-1#comment-49076 Aristotle Pagaltzis Sun, 12 Nov 2006 01:48:52 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds#comment-49076 <p>That’s fine in theory.</p> <p>In practice, aggregators tend not to care about the MIME type of feeds, so most feeds today are served as <code>text/html</code>. (Yes, you read that right. A whole lot of the rest are served as <code>text/plain</code>.) The same is true of images and videos, btw. There is no way to avoid content sniffing.</p> <p>The ideal approach would have been to honour the PI <em>only</em> if the feed is served as <code>text/xml</code> or <code>application/xml</code>, eg. explicitly as generic XML rather than as a feed. In case of sniffed feeds or feeds served with the proper MIME type, the PI would be ignored (as client apps are free to do; they are under no obligation to honour the PI), but authors would still have a clean and obvious option for getting what they want.</p> <p>Except that RSS 2.0 does not have a MIME type and is therefore served as <code>text/xml</code> or <code>application/xml</code>.</p> <p>This is what happens when people who have no clue of how the web works come up with things to put on the web: you end up with no good way of implementing their crud.</p> <p>The only thing I can think of that could have been better than what we have now would be to specify a new PI to explicitly disable the default feed view. (Although I’d want to have maybe add a yellow strip that lets me disable the custom view or something like that; withholding from the reader the ability to be the ultimate arbiter of his own experience is Wrong.)</p> That’s fine in theory.

In practice, aggregators tend not to care about the MIME type of feeds, so most feeds today are served as text/html. (Yes, you read that right. A whole lot of the rest are served as text/plain.) The same is true of images and videos, btw. There is no way to avoid content sniffing.

The ideal approach would have been to honour the PI only if the feed is served as text/xml or application/xml, eg. explicitly as generic XML rather than as a feed. In case of sniffed feeds or feeds served with the proper MIME type, the PI would be ignored (as client apps are free to do; they are under no obligation to honour the PI), but authors would still have a clean and obvious option for getting what they want.

Except that RSS 2.0 does not have a MIME type and is therefore served as text/xml or application/xml.

This is what happens when people who have no clue of how the web works come up with things to put on the web: you end up with no good way of implementing their crud.

The only thing I can think of that could have been better than what we have now would be to specify a new PI to explicitly disable the default feed view. (Although I’d want to have maybe add a yellow strip that lets me disable the custom view or something like that; withholding from the reader the ability to be the ultimate arbiter of his own experience is Wrong.)

]]> By: basa http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds/comment-page-1#comment-48710 basa Fri, 10 Nov 2006 20:28:06 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds#comment-48710 <p>It is clearly wrong for brwosers to decide what is best for every website. A processing instruction is probably already in place but is simply being ignored by the browsers in question. The behaviour of the browsers should IMHO be to (1) either handle processing-instructions if they exist, (2) check the content-type (mime) of the document and unless application/rss+xml handle it as xml. I think that's the only approach that matches the specifications and the real world.</p> It is clearly wrong for brwosers to decide what is best for every website. A processing instruction is probably already in place but is simply being ignored by the browsers in question. The behaviour of the browsers should IMHO be to (1) either handle processing-instructions if they exist, (2) check the content-type (mime) of the document and unless application/rss+xml handle it as xml. I think that’s the only approach that matches the specifications and the real world.

]]> By: l.m.orchard http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds/comment-page-1#comment-47938 l.m.orchard Tue, 07 Nov 2006 20:57:22 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds#comment-47938 <p>Aristotle: Because aggregators tend to me much more purpose-focused and support more of the vocabulary in feeds. The Firefox default view sucks, and its preemption makes it hard for me to fix that for the elements I know I'm using. As for checking headers and transforming on the server... that defeats caching as we have it set up, which I don't feel like reworking because Firefox has decided it knows what's better for me.</p> Aristotle: Because aggregators tend to me much more purpose-focused and support more of the vocabulary in feeds. The Firefox default view sucks, and its preemption makes it hard for me to fix that for the elements I know I’m using. As for checking headers and transforming on the server… that defeats caching as we have it set up, which I don’t feel like reworking because Firefox has decided it knows what’s better for me.

]]> By: Kevin Burton http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds/comment-page-1#comment-47574 Kevin Burton Mon, 06 Nov 2006 17:57:29 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds#comment-47574 <p>This bothers me too. I think Safari has the same problem.</p> <p>They need to give publishers a way to override this behavior. Maybe an XML processing instruction...</p> <p>Kevin</p> This bothers me too. I think Safari has the same problem.

They need to give publishers a way to override this behavior. Maybe an XML processing instruction…

Kevin

]]> By: john manoogian III http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds/comment-page-1#comment-47340 john manoogian III Sun, 05 Nov 2006 23:30:17 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds#comment-47340 <p>yeah, that's totally ridiculous and really lame that they did that.</p> yeah, that’s totally ridiculous and really lame that they did that.

]]> By: Keith Gaughan http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds/comment-page-1#comment-47069 Keith Gaughan Sun, 05 Nov 2006 03:27:37 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds#comment-47069 <p>Why shouldn't it? Because in the former case, it's being viewed in a <em>browser</em> and in the latter, an <em>aggregator</em>. I'm not just being facetious here; the browser functionality shouldn't play second fiddle to the aggregator functionality unless <em>told</em> to do so.</p> Why shouldn’t it? Because in the former case, it’s being viewed in a browser and in the latter, an aggregator. I’m not just being facetious here; the browser functionality shouldn’t play second fiddle to the aggregator functionality unless told to do so.

]]> By: Aristotle Pagaltzis http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds/comment-page-1#comment-46841 Aristotle Pagaltzis Sat, 04 Nov 2006 08:58:58 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds#comment-46841 <p>Why is it a problem when browsers with aggregator functionality disregard XSLT stylesheets, but when dedicated aggregators do it’s not?</p> <p>My take: if you want to control the presentation, check the <code>Accpept</code> (and possibly <code>Referer</code>) header and transform on the server.</p> Why is it a problem when browsers with aggregator functionality disregard XSLT stylesheets, but when dedicated aggregators do it’s not?

My take: if you want to control the presentation, check the Accpept (and possibly Referer) header and transform on the server.

]]> By: Joe Grossberg http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds/comment-page-1#comment-46528 Joe Grossberg Thu, 02 Nov 2006 22:11:56 +0000 http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/11/02/firefox-20-breaks-client-side-xsl-for-rss-and-atom-feeds#comment-46528 <p>Len:</p> <p>And what would the default be?</p> Len:

And what would the default be?

]]>