Website Icons (aka favicons)

[Crom]

Ok. I want to settle this once and for all. After looking at the source
for various, rather sizeable (but not all were so big) web sites that
use icons that show up in the addressbar beside the address itself.

Just about all websites that use said icons use one of these two methods
(some use both even) to make them appear (in the code of a webpage.) :

<LINK REL="icon" HREF="/icon.ico" TYPE="image/ico">
<LINK REL="SHORTCUT ICON" HREF="/icon.ico">

My question is this. Is one of these methods more correct (or standard)
? Is it better to use both, or jsut one of these? Is there maybe another
method??

Thank you.

[brucie]

In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html Crom said:

Ok,

no its not

What is the accepted way to share a message across multiple newsgroups?
http://smjg.port5.com/faqs/usenet/xpost.html
--
the facts and opinions expressed by brucies
l i t t l e v o i c e s
are not necessarily the same as those held by brucie.

[Crom]

"brucie" <sh**@usenetshit.info> wrote in message
news:ln**************@usenetshit.info...

In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html Crom said:

Ok,
no its not

What is the accepted way to share a message across multiple

newsgroups? http://smjg.port5.com/faqs/usenet/xpost.html

Yes, If your server doesn't reject posts with more than 1 group in the
newsgroups line...

[brucie]

In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html Crom said:

<LINK REL="icon" HREF="/icon.ico" TYPE="image/ico">
<LINK REL="SHORTCUT ICON" HREF="/icon.ico">

My question is this. Is one of these methods more correct (or standard)

the only standard is the correct syntax for the <link> element, other
than that its up to each UA what they want to do with it, if anything.

http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/...html#edef-LINK

--
the facts and opinions expressed by brucies
l i t t l e v o i c e s
are not necessarily the same as those held by brucie.

[brucie]

In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html Crom said:

What is the accepted way to share a message across multiple
newsgroups? http://smjg.port5.com/faqs/usenet/xpost.html

Yes, if your news server didnt reject posts with more than one group in
the newsgroup line...

http://news.individual.net/
--
the facts and opinions expressed by brucies
l i t t l e v o i c e s
are not necessarily the same as those held by brucie.

[Sam Hughes]

"Crom" <xx**@yyyy.zzzz> wrote in news:cn**********@news.astound.net:

"brucie" <sh**@usenetshit.info> wrote in message
news:ln**************@usenetshit.info...

[dont' multipost]

Yes, If your server doesn't reject posts with more than 1 group in the
newsgroups line...

A good point. You might be interested in the http://news.individual.net/
link which Brucie provided. It is a free Usenet service for access to many
non-binary newsgroups, permitting crossposting. Unless things have
changed, its sign-up system is midieval, though -- it required sending an
email to somebody, who a few days later would send an email in reply. I am
very thankful for its presence.

As for your current situation, most people do fine picking one group and
asking in there, especially when it comes to well-trafficked ones such as
these.

[Stan Brown]

"Crom" <xx**@yyyy.zzzz> wrote in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html:

"brucie" <sh**@usenetshit.info> wrote in message
news:ln**************@usenetshit.info...

In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html Crom said:

> Ok,

no its not

What is the accepted way to share a message across multiple

newsgroups?

http://smjg.port5.com/faqs/usenet/xpost.html

Yes, If your server doesn't reject posts with more than 1 group in the
newsgroups line...

Then either get a better server or pick the ONE most appropriate
newsgroup. Don't waste the time of thousands of people for your own
convenience.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[brucie]

In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html Sam Hughes said:

http://news.individual.net/ Unless things have changed, its sign-up
system is midieval, though -- it required sending an email to
somebody, who a few days later would send an email in reply.

i think its practical rather than medieval. if it was auto it would be
too open to abuse. it may annoy people who are used to our instant
gratification society but tuff.

--
the facts and opinions expressed by brucies
l i t t l e v o i c e s
are not necessarily the same as those held by brucie.

[Philipp Lenssen]

Crom wrote:

<LINK REL="icon" HREF="/icon.ico" TYPE="image/ico">
<LINK REL="SHORTCUT ICON" HREF="/icon.ico">

My question is this. Is one of these methods more correct (or
standard) ? Is it better to use both, or jsut one of these? Is there
maybe another method??

Yes, another method (and the one I prefer, mainly because it's easy,
and also suppresses the icon to appear in file-not-found top ten lists)
is to create an icon called "favicon.ico" and place it in the server
root folder.
--
Google Blogoscoped
http://blog.outer-court.com

[D. Stussy]

On Sun, 14 Nov 2004, Crom wrote:

Ok. I want to settle this once and for all. After looking at the source
for various, rather sizeable (but not all were so big) web sites that
use icons that show up in the addressbar beside the address itself.

Just about all websites that use said icons use one of these two methods
(some use both even) to make them appear (in the code of a webpage.) :

<LINK REL="icon" HREF="/icon.ico" TYPE="image/ico">
<LINK REL="SHORTCUT ICON" HREF="/icon.ico">

My question is this. Is one of these methods more correct (or standard)
? Is it better to use both, or jsut one of these? Is there maybe another
method??

That is NOT a choice between two methods. Those statements do different
things. There are TWO icons which are controlled.

The top line controls the graphic that appears next to the URL when actually
viewing the page. This is the one you are asking about.

The bottom line controls the graphic that appears in the favorites/bookmarks
listing next to the page/item name (taken from the title, but user changable).
You didn't ask about this one, and in many cases, it will default to be the
same as the first, but it is possible to have DIFFERENT graphics in the list as
compared to when viewing the page.

If one of these doesn't exist, then the "favicon.ico" (default name) file may
be grabbed in place of the missing one [as mentioned in someone else's reply]
by the user's browser. The browser may look in the current directory or any
[accessible] directory above it, up to the document root, or it may look
nowhere, for such a file.

[Steve Pugh]

On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 09:52:38 GMT, "D. Stussy"
<kd****@bde-arc.ampr.org> wrote:

On Sun, 14 Nov 2004, Crom wrote:

Ok. I want to settle this once and for all. After looking at the source
for various, rather sizeable (but not all were so big) web sites that
use icons that show up in the addressbar beside the address itself.

Just about all websites that use said icons use one of these two methods
(some use both even) to make them appear (in the code of a webpage.) :

<LINK REL="icon" HREF="/icon.ico" TYPE="image/ico">
<LINK REL="SHORTCUT ICON" HREF="/icon.ico">
Capitalisation doesn't matter and type is optional, so the only real
differences between these two is the value of the rel attribute.
My question is this. Is one of these methods more correct (or standard)
? Is it better to use both, or jsut one of these? Is there maybe another
method??
That is NOT a choice between two methods. Those statements do different
things. There are TWO icons which are controlled.

This is news to me.

Microsoft invented rel="shortcut icon" either withour realising, or
choosing to ignore, the fact that the rel attribute takes a space
separate list of values. So rel="shortcut icon" is the same as
rel="shortcut" and rel="icon" and rel="icon shortcut"

(MS aren't alone on making thise mistake, see the W3C and
rel="alternatie stylesheet").

AFAIK IE still only supports rel="shortcut icon" not any of the
alterntive formulations.
The top line controls the graphic that appears next to the URL when actually
viewing the page. This is the one you are asking about.

The bottom line controls the graphic that appears in the favorites/bookmarks
listing next to the page/item name (taken from the title, but user changable).
You didn't ask about this one, and in many cases, it will default to be the
same as the first, but it is possible to have DIFFERENT graphics in the list as
compared to when viewing the page.

Have you got a URL that demonstrates this?

http://steve.pugh.net/test/test85.html
contains the following:
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="red.ico">
<link rel="shortcut" href="green.ico">
<link rel="icon" href="blue.ico">
<link rel="icon shortcut" href="black.ico">

Opera 7.54 shows a blue icon in the address bar and my site's default
favicon in the bookmarks (this seems to be an Opera bug).

Firefox 1.0 and Mozilla 1.7 show the black icon in the address bar and
nothing in the bookmarks (does Gecko ever show icons in the
bookmarks?).

IE6 shows the red icon the favorites and nothing in the address bar
(as expected).

So if you meant that you can make different browsers show different
icons in different places then I agree. But apart from Opera (and that
seems to be buggy in this respect) I can't get any individual browser
to show different icons in the different places.

To the OP, use rel="shortcut icon" for widest cross browser
compatability. It's the only thing that IE supports and is also
supported by all other browsers that support icons.

Steve

[Sam Hughes]

brucie <sh**@usenetshit.info> wrote in news:oooaridsodq0
$.***@usenetshit.info:

In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html Sam Hughes said:

http://news.individual.net/ Unless things have changed, its sign-up
system is midieval, though -- it required sending an email to
somebody, who a few days later would send an email in reply.

i think its practical rather than medieval.

Who said medieval was bad?

[Daniel R. Tobias]

"Philipp Lenssen" <in**@outer-court.com> wrote in message news:<2v*************@uni-berlin.de>...

Yes, another method (and the one I prefer, mainly because it's easy,
and also suppresses the icon to appear in file-not-found top ten lists)
is to create an icon called "favicon.ico" and place it in the server
root folder.

Most versions of Mozilla won't display icons unless they're explicitly linked.

--
Dan

[Stan Brown]

"Daniel R. Tobias" <da*@tobias.name> wrote in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html:

"Philipp Lenssen" <in**@outer-court.com> wrote in message news:<2v*************@uni-berlin.de>...

Yes, another method (and the one I prefer, mainly because it's easy,
and also suppresses the icon to appear in file-not-found top ten lists)
is to create an icon called "favicon.ico" and place it in the server
root folder.

Most versions of Mozilla won't display icons unless they're explicitly linked.

IMHO a better way to phrase that is "Most versions of Mozilla don't
go out asking the server for resources that the page author didn't
think were necessary."

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[brucie]

In comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html Sam Hughes said:

Who said medieval was bad?

i especially like the raping and pillaging part

--
the facts and opinions expressed by brucies
l i t t l e v o i c e s
are not necessarily the same as those held by brucie.

[David Ross]

Philipp Lenssen wrote:

Crom wrote:

<LINK REL="icon" HREF="/icon.ico" TYPE="image/ico">
<LINK REL="SHORTCUT ICON" HREF="/icon.ico">

My question is this. Is one of these methods more correct (or
standard) ? Is it better to use both, or jsut one of these? Is there
maybe another method??

Yes, another method (and the one I prefer, mainly because it's easy,
and also suppresses the icon to appear in file-not-found top ten lists)
is to create an icon called "favicon.ico" and place it in the server
root folder.

Requiring the icon to be named favicon.ico limits the Web site to
only one such icon. I use the LINK method because I use five
different icons, choosing one per Web page according to that page's
topic. However, on the Web server (UNIX-based), I created a
soft-link named favicon.ico pointing to my most used icon file for
those who are stuck using IE.

With Mozilla, either version of the LINK seems to work equally
well. I use both in my Web pages.

--

David E. Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>

I use Mozilla as my Web browser because I want a browser that
complies with Web standards. See <http://www.mozilla.org/>.

[D. Stussy]

On Mon, 15 Nov 2004, Steve Pugh wrote:

On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 09:52:38 GMT, "D. Stussy"
<kd****@bde-arc.ampr.org> wrote:

On Sun, 14 Nov 2004, Crom wrote:

Ok. I want to settle this once and for all. After looking at the source
for various, rather sizeable (but not all were so big) web sites that
use icons that show up in the addressbar beside the address itself.

Just about all websites that use said icons use one of these two methods
(some use both even) to make them appear (in the code of a webpage.) :

<LINK REL="icon" HREF="/icon.ico" TYPE="image/ico">
<LINK REL="SHORTCUT ICON" HREF="/icon.ico">
Capitalisation doesn't matter and type is optional, so the only real
differences between these two is the value of the rel attribute.
My question is this. Is one of these methods more correct (or standard)
? Is it better to use both, or jsut one of these? Is there maybe another
method??
That is NOT a choice between two methods. Those statements do different
things. There are TWO icons which are controlled.

This is news to me.

Microsoft invented rel="shortcut icon" either withour realising, or
choosing to ignore, the fact that the rel attribute takes a space
separate list of values. So rel="shortcut icon" is the same as
rel="shortcut" and rel="icon" and rel="icon shortcut"

It's still defining TWO separate things, even if, per you, the names are
slightly different - i.e. "shortcut" and "icon" instead of "icon" and "shortcut
icon".
(MS aren't alone on making thise mistake, see the W3C and
rel="alternatie stylesheet").

AFAIK IE still only supports rel="shortcut icon" not any of the
alterntive formulations.

The top line controls the graphic that appears next to the URL when actually
viewing the page. This is the one you are asking about.

The bottom line controls the graphic that appears in the favorites/bookmarks
listing next to the page/item name (taken from the title, but user changable).
You didn't ask about this one, and in many cases, it will default to be the
same as the first, but it is possible to have DIFFERENT graphics in the list as
compared to when viewing the page.
Have you got a URL that demonstrates this?

http://steve.pugh.net/test/test85.html
contains the following:
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="red.ico">
<link rel="shortcut" href="green.ico">
<link rel="icon" href="blue.ico">
<link rel="icon shortcut" href="black.ico">

Opera 7.54 shows a blue icon in the address bar and my site's default
favicon in the bookmarks (this seems to be an Opera bug).

Firefox 1.0 and Mozilla 1.7 show the black icon in the address bar and
nothing in the bookmarks (does Gecko ever show icons in the
bookmarks?).

IE6 shows the red icon the favorites and nothing in the address bar
(as expected).

I have had different results with IE6. Icons do show in the address bar.
However, I haven't tried that with your test. Icons also disappear from the
favorites list as they get purged from the cache.

As you noted in your investigation, a URL by itself is insufficient to see if
different icons show up in the address/location area vs. the
bookmarks/favorites area. It's client program dependent also.
So if you meant that you can make different browsers show different
icons in different places then I agree. But apart from Opera (and that
seems to be buggy in this respect) I can't get any individual browser
to show different icons in the different places.
Remember that clients need not implement all features of HTML directives. That
doesn't mean that the directives, if not ignored, wouldn't produce the result I
stated they could.
To the OP, use rel="shortcut icon" for widest cross browser
compatability. It's the only thing that IE supports and is also
supported by all other browsers that support icons.

[Steve Pugh]

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 07:05:29 GMT, "D. Stussy"
<kd****@bde-arc.ampr.org> wrote:

On Mon, 15 Nov 2004, Steve Pugh wrote:

On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 09:52:38 GMT, "D. Stussy"
<kd****@bde-arc.ampr.org> wrote:

>On Sun, 14 Nov 2004, Crom wrote:
>>
>> <LINK REL="icon" HREF="/icon.ico" TYPE="image/ico">
>> <LINK REL="SHORTCUT ICON" HREF="/icon.ico">
>
>That is NOT a choice between two methods. Those statements do different
>things. There are TWO icons which are controlled.
This is news to me.

Microsoft invented rel="shortcut icon" either withour realising, or
choosing to ignore, the fact that the rel attribute takes a space
separate list of values. So rel="shortcut icon" is the same as
rel="shortcut" and rel="icon" and rel="icon shortcut"

It's still defining TWO separate things, even if, per you, the names are
slightly different - i.e. "shortcut" and "icon" instead of "icon" and "shortcut
icon".

Yes in theory, but MS didn't define what "shortcut" and "icon" are.

Other browsers have expanded this and support the solo versions as
equivalancies to the original MS version and Gecko also supports the
reversed combination, again as an equivalent. In other words they've
taken "shortcut" and "icon" to mean the same thing.

Can you name one browser that treats "shortcut" and "icon" as
different?

>The top line controls the graphic that appears next to the URL when actually
>viewing the page. This is the one you are asking about.
>
>The bottom line controls the graphic that appears in the favorites/bookmarks
>listing next to the page/item name (taken from the title, but user changable).
>You didn't ask about this one, and in many cases, it will default to be the
>same as the first, but it is possible to have DIFFERENT graphics in the list as
>compared to when viewing the page.

Have you got a URL that demonstrates this?

http://steve.pugh.net/test/test85.html
contains the following:
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="red.ico">
<link rel="shortcut" href="green.ico">
<link rel="icon" href="blue.ico">
<link rel="icon shortcut" href="black.ico">

Opera 7.54 shows a blue icon in the address bar and my site's default
favicon in the bookmarks (this seems to be an Opera bug).

Firefox 1.0 and Mozilla 1.7 show the black icon in the address bar and
nothing in the bookmarks (does Gecko ever show icons in the
bookmarks?).

IE6 shows the red icon the favorites and nothing in the address bar
(as expected).

I have had different results with IE6. Icons do show in the address bar.

If you return to the site after you've added it to your favorites then
the same icon will appear in the address bar. Sometimes it happens
when you return in the same browser session, sometimes you need to
restart the browser first, IE is inconsistent. But IE never uses any
icon other than the one defined witrh "shortcut icon".
As you noted in your investigation, a URL by itself is insufficient to see if
different icons show up in the address/location area vs. the
bookmarks/favorites area. It's client program dependent also.

Can you give an example of any URL which when viewed in any browser
uses icons defined in different <link> elements in different places?
Tha's all I'm asking you for. If you can't then I have to remain very
sceptical about your original claim.

Steve

[D. Stussy]

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004, Steve Pugh wrote:

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 07:05:29 GMT, "D. Stussy"
<kd****@bde-arc.ampr.org> wrote:

On Mon, 15 Nov 2004, Steve Pugh wrote:

On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 09:52:38 GMT, "D. Stussy"
<kd****@bde-arc.ampr.org> wrote:
>On Sun, 14 Nov 2004, Crom wrote:
>>
>> <LINK REL="icon" HREF="/icon.ico" TYPE="image/ico">
>> <LINK REL="SHORTCUT ICON" HREF="/icon.ico">
>
>That is NOT a choice between two methods. Those statements do different
>things. There are TWO icons which are controlled.

This is news to me.

Microsoft invented rel="shortcut icon" either withour realising, or
choosing to ignore, the fact that the rel attribute takes a space
separate list of values. So rel="shortcut icon" is the same as
rel="shortcut" and rel="icon" and rel="icon shortcut"

It's still defining TWO separate things, even if, per you, the names are
slightly different - i.e. "shortcut" and "icon" instead of "icon" and "shortcut
icon".

Yes in theory, but MS didn't define what "shortcut" and "icon" are.

Other browsers have expanded this and support the solo versions as
equivalancies to the original MS version and Gecko also supports the
reversed combination, again as an equivalent. In other words they've
taken "shortcut" and "icon" to mean the same thing.

Can you name one browser that treats "shortcut" and "icon" as
different?

I don't claim to have experience with ALL browsers that exist.

Can you identify a formal specification that says that these ARE identical? I
have yet to see a specification (even an informal one) that officially defines
these terms. They started as a hack, and they are still a hack; they're just
more common now. None of the informal definitions ever say that they are
identical, and by saying that both forms should be present, imply that they are
not.

>The top line controls the graphic that appears next to the URL when actually
>viewing the page. This is the one you are asking about.
>
>The bottom line controls the graphic that appears in the favorites/bookmarks
>listing next to the page/item name (taken from the title, but user changable).
>You didn't ask about this one, and in many cases, it will default to be the
>same as the first, but it is possible to have DIFFERENT graphics in the list as
>compared to when viewing the page.

Have you got a URL that demonstrates this?

http://steve.pugh.net/test/test85.html
contains the following:
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="red.ico">
<link rel="shortcut" href="green.ico">
<link rel="icon" href="blue.ico">
<link rel="icon shortcut" href="black.ico">

Opera 7.54 shows a blue icon in the address bar and my site's default
favicon in the bookmarks (this seems to be an Opera bug).

Firefox 1.0 and Mozilla 1.7 show the black icon in the address bar and
nothing in the bookmarks (does Gecko ever show icons in the
bookmarks?).

IE6 shows the red icon the favorites and nothing in the address bar
(as expected).

I have had different results with IE6. Icons do show in the address bar.

If you return to the site after you've added it to your favorites then
the same icon will appear in the address bar. Sometimes it happens
when you return in the same browser session, sometimes you need to
restart the browser first, IE is inconsistent. But IE never uses any
icon other than the one defined witrh "shortcut icon".

As you noted in your investigation, a URL by itself is insufficient to see if
different icons show up in the address/location area vs. the
bookmarks/favorites area. It's client program dependent also.

Can you give an example of any URL which when viewed in any browser
uses icons defined in different <link> elements in different places?
Tha's all I'm asking you for. If you can't then I have to remain very
sceptical about your original claim.

That's fine, but can you prove that such a program doesn't exist? Nor do I
claim to even know 100% of all the client programs out there that interpret
HTML.

Is it your position that the reason there are two different forms of this is
NOT to address these different usages but for some other reason, including a
mistake by Micro$oft and/or other software providers?

[Steve Pugh]

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 10:20:29 GMT, "D. Stussy"
<kd****@bde-arc.ampr.org> wrote:

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004, Steve Pugh wrote:

Can you name one browser that treats "shortcut" and "icon" as
different?
I don't claim to have experience with ALL browsers that exist.

I understand, but where did your original statement come from?
Can you identify a formal specification that says that these ARE identical?
No, there is no formal sdpecification for these, or indeed all but a
very few possible values of rel/rev in link elements.
I
have yet to see a specification (even an informal one) that officially defines
these terms. They started as a hack, and they are still a hack; they're just
more common now. None of the informal definitions ever say that they are
identical, and by saying that both forms should be present, imply that they are
not.
The only definition I know of is the MS one that defines "shortcut
icon" as a seemingly singular entity.

The behaviour in Opera and Gecko seems to be a logical extension of
that that attempts to reconcile the existing practice with the
standard.

I accept that your approach is also a logical extension but it is not
one that seems to supported by actual practice.
Is it your position that the reason there are two different forms of this is
NOT to address these different usages but for some other reason, including a
mistake by Micro$oft and/or other software providers?

Spot on. MS made a mistake. Defining rel="icon" would have been
simpler. It could have been worse - <body icon="favicon.ico"> or
<icon src="favicon.src"> for example.

Steve

[D. Stussy]

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004, Steve Pugh wrote:

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 10:20:29 GMT, "D. Stussy"
<kd****@bde-arc.ampr.org> wrote:

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004, Steve Pugh wrote:

Can you name one browser that treats "shortcut" and "icon" as
different?
I don't claim to have experience with ALL browsers that exist.

I understand, but where did your original statement come from?

Can you identify a formal specification that says that these ARE identical?

No, there is no formal sdpecification for these, or indeed all but a
very few possible values of rel/rev in link elements.

Exactly my point: Without a formal specification that equates these two
things, there is no way that anyone can conclude that they are in fact the same
- especially when different client programs react to them differently
(including ignoring one or the other but not both).

I
have yet to see a specification (even an informal one) that officially defines
these terms. They started as a hack, and they are still a hack; they're just
more common now. None of the informal definitions ever say that they are
identical, and by saying that both forms should be present, imply that they are
not.

The only definition I know of is the MS one that defines "shortcut
icon" as a seemingly singular entity.

One source often does not make an exhaustive definition. Have you searched for
other sources of information, like "www.favicon.org" (e.g.)?
The behaviour in Opera and Gecko seems to be a logical extension of
that that attempts to reconcile the existing practice with the
standard.

I accept that your approach is also a logical extension but it is not
one that seems to supported by actual practice.

Is it your position that the reason there are two different forms of this is
NOT to address these different usages but for some other reason, including a
mistake by Micro$oft and/or other software providers?

Spot on. MS made a mistake. Defining rel="icon" would have been
simpler. It could have been worse - <body icon="favicon.ico"> or
<icon src="favicon.src"> for example.

[Steve Pugh]

On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 01:51:45 GMT, "D. Stussy"
<kd****@bde-arc.ampr.org> wrote:

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004, Steve Pugh wrote:

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 10:20:29 GMT, "D. Stussy"
<kd****@bde-arc.ampr.org> wrote:

>On Mon, 22 Nov 2004, Steve Pugh wrote:
>>
>> Can you name one browser that treats "shortcut" and "icon" as
>> different?
>
>I don't claim to have experience with ALL browsers that exist.
I understand, but where did your original statement come from?

>Can you identify a formal specification that says that these ARE identical?

No, there is no formal sdpecification for these, or indeed all but a
very few possible values of rel/rev in link elements.

Exactly my point: Without a formal specification that equates these two
things, there is no way that anyone can conclude that they are in fact the same
- especially when different client programs react to them differently
(including ignoring one or the other but not both).

And the reverse: Without a formal specification that differentates
between the two, there is no way that anyone can conclude that they
are in fact different. Lack of support for one variation can't be
taken as proof that it means something different from the other
variation, just that it isn't supported.

You still haven't demonstrated that any user agents does anything
different with them. Your original claim that one was used for the
address bar and one was used for the bookmarks is still
unsubstantiated.

So they can't be shown to be the same, and they can't be shown to be
different. So please let it die.

> I
>have yet to see a specification (even an informal one) that officially defines
>these terms. They started as a hack, and they are still a hack; they're just
>more common now. None of the informal definitions ever say that they are
>identical, and by saying that both forms should be present, imply that they are
>not.

The only definition I know of is the MS one that defines "shortcut
icon" as a seemingly singular entity.

One source often does not make an exhaustive definition.

It does if its the only definition in existence.

The Mozilla release notes for the version that first supported icons
linked to the MSDN page.
Have you searched for
other sources of information, like "www.favicon.org" (e.g.)?

Um, why post the URL of some spam directory? I suppose you might have
meant http://www.favicon.com but (a) that merely documents existing
browser behaviour (i.e. it's just as authorative as this thread) and
(b) it's out of date.

Steve

[D. Stussy]

On Mon, 29 Nov 2004, Steve Pugh wrote:

On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 01:51:45 GMT, "D. Stussy" <kd****@bde-arc.ampr.org> wrote:

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004, Steve Pugh wrote:

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 10:20:29 GMT, "D. Stussy"
<kd****@bde-arc.ampr.org> wrote:
>On Mon, 22 Nov 2004, Steve Pugh wrote:
>>
>> Can you name one browser that treats "shortcut" and "icon" as
>> different?
>
>I don't claim to have experience with ALL browsers that exist.

I understand, but where did your original statement come from?

>Can you identify a formal specification that says that these ARE identical?

No, there is no formal sdpecification for these, or indeed all but a
very few possible values of rel/rev in link elements.
Exactly my point: Without a formal specification that equates these two
things, there is no way that anyone can conclude that they are in fact the same
- especially when different client programs react to them differently
(including ignoring one or the other but not both).

And the reverse: Without a formal specification that differentates
between the two, there is no way that anyone can conclude that they
are in fact different. Lack of support for one variation can't be
taken as proof that it means something different from the other
variation, just that it isn't supported.

You still haven't demonstrated that any user agents does anything
different with them. Your original claim that one was used for the
address bar and one was used for the bookmarks is still
unsubstantiated.

So they can't be shown to be the same, and they can't be shown to be
different. So please let it die.

I am willing to let it die, but I also don't see you think I have the burden of
proof.

> I
>have yet to see a specification (even an informal one) that officially defines
>these terms. They started as a hack, and they are still a hack; they're just
>more common now. None of the informal definitions ever say that they are
>identical, and by saying that both forms should be present, imply that they are
>not.

The only definition I know of is the MS one that defines "shortcut
icon" as a seemingly singular entity.

One source often does not make an exhaustive definition.

It does if its the only definition in existence.

It's not.
The Mozilla release notes for the version that first supported icons
linked to the MSDN page.

Have you searched for
other sources of information, like "www.favicon.org" (e.g.)?

Um, why post the URL of some spam directory? I suppose you might have
meant http://www.favicon.com but (a) that merely documents existing
browser behaviour (i.e. it's just as authorative as this thread) and
(b) it's out of date.

Why would spam help here?

[Harrie]

Steve Pugh said the following on 11/15/04 11:54:

Firefox 1.0 and Mozilla 1.7 show the black icon in the address bar and
nothing in the bookmarks (does Gecko ever show icons in the
bookmarks?).

Yes, Mozilla Firefox 1.0 (and I guess it will be the same for Mozilla
1.7 and higher) store the bookmark icons in the bookmarks.html file
(earlier behavior was to store it in the cache file). Look at it with an
editor and you see things like:

ICON="data:image/x-icon;base64,...."

and/or:

ICON="data:image/png;base64,...."

(where the dots contain the icon data)

You have to click on the bookmark to get the icon the first time though
(not sure if this is a bug).

I just checked your page, Mozilla Firefox 1.0 shows the blue icon, but
then, the line containing the black icon is commented out (in the head
section, not in the body section). It might be because you changed the
page in the meantime.

--
Regards
Harrie

[Steve Pugh]

On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 08:31:57 GMT, "D. Stussy"
<kd****@bde-arc.ampr.org> wrote:

On Mon, 29 Nov 2004, Steve Pugh wrote:

You still haven't demonstrated that any user agents does anything
different with them. Your original claim that one was used for the
address bar and one was used for the bookmarks is still
unsubstantiated.

So they can't be shown to be the same, and they can't be shown to be
different. So please let it die.
I am willing to let it die,

Happily.
but I also don't see you think I have the burden of
proof.

Sorry, I can't parse that sentence. Was there meant to be a 'why' in
there? In which case the answer is because you made the original claim
and haven't offered anything to back it up.

> Have you searched for
>other sources of information, like "www.favicon.org" (e.g.)?

Um, why post the URL of some spam directory?

Why would spam help here?

I don't know. You're the one who posted the link to a spammy type
directory. I guess you misremembered the URL and didn't check it
before posting.

Steve