I'd like to encourage HTML UA developers to support processing
instructions (PIs) as a way to test at least some new features.
By support, I mean at least recognize them as stuff that shouldn't
be displayed (NCSA Mosaic and Netscape both display them).
A PI has the syntax <?stuff not including right angle bracket>;
as always with SGML there are wrinkles. It's meant to hold
application-specific information. Netscape might well have
done
<?netscape-begin-blink>blinking text<?netscape-end-blink>
instead of introducing a new element.
SGMLlers generally hate PIs (usually for good reason), but
especially for browser-specific mods and functions they're
entirely appropriate and require no change to the HTML spec.
Regards,
-- Terry Allen (terry@ora.com) O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. Editor, Digital Media Group 101 Morris St. Sebastopol, Calif., 95472 occasional column at: http://gnn.com/meta/imedia/webworks/allen/A Davenport Group sponsor. For information on the Davenport Group see ftp://ftp.ora.com/pub/davenport/README.html or http://www.ora.com/davenport/README.html