[264] in World Wide Web
exec links
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (yandros@MIT.EDU)
Wed May 18 23:29:58 1994
From: yandros@MIT.EDU
Date: Wed, 18 May 94 23:29:46 -0400
To: www@MIT.EDU
I'd to hear people's opinions about exec-tyle links - links that allow
for execution of programs on the *client* side.
There are a number of strategies to make this work, and it can be done
mostly-safely if we really want, but would they be worthwhile? The
cross-platform issues means that we need a layer somewhere between the
URL the user chooses and the program the client runs (I doubt people
want to try to run `tin' on thier macintosh, or TechMail under UN*X.)
Most likely this layer would appear as new MIME types for common
actions, like `mailreader' or `newsreader' or such, but the creation
and management of these new types would have to be maintained
centrally somehow. Thisisn't a real problem; I could do it, but I
want input before I invest the time, especially input from non-UNIX
people about what we can do on those systems.
