Mark Baker wrote:
The real problem here AIUI - at least in the context of HTML 5's inferred rel="feed" bit - is not just entry documents, it's any Atom document which wouldn't normally be considered a "feed" by a typical user; something that most people would be interested in subscribing to. An example I gave on the whatwg list was an MHTML-like (MIME multipart) package, but there are many other possible examples of course; not all RFC 4287 feed documents are "feeds" in this sense. If HTML 5 (and current practice) doesn't change, but we defer to them for the specification of autodiscovery, then a new media type would be one way forward. But it should be reusable for all non-"feed" (i.e. from a user POV, as above) Atom documents, not just entry documents; perhaps application/atom-no-feed+xml. It's an ugly hack, but it's better than the alternative of many more specific Atom-related media types, which atomentry+xml might set a precedent for.
Note that HTML 5's special handling of alternate+Atom is triggered on a literal value for the 'type' attribute: # If the 'alternate' keyword is used with the 'type' attribute set to the value # 'application/rss+xml' or the value 'application/atom+xml', then the user # agent must treat the link as it would if it had the 'feed' keyword specified # as well. That means rel="feed" won't be implied on an Atom Entry document whether the new MIME type syntax is chosen to be application/atom.entry+xml or application/atom+xml;type=entry It also won't be implied on an Atom feed document if the syntax application/atom+xml;type=feed or application/atom+xml;type=archive is used, as was suggested earlier. This gives us a way to say <link rel="alternate" href="[..]" type="[atom]"> without implying <link rel="alternate feed" href="[..]" type="[atom]"> and without dropping the 'type' attribute entirely (which was the other solution pointed out on the whatwg list). ~fantasai
