[WEB4LIB] Re: Uploading graphics

[Debra Lords]

Actually, planning on case insensitivity is incorrect.  Depending
on the WebServer (not the OS of the box, but the WebServer
Engine), case sensitivity can be a factor. 

Compare:
http://www.cs.utah.edu/~bean/research.html
http://www.cs.utah.edu/~Bean/research.html
http://www.cs.utah.edu/~bean/Research.html

Three very different results, running Apache/1.3.6 Server.  It is
better to default to lowercase names because your users just
don't necessarily know if your WebServer Engine is pickey. 
Particularly folks who send URLs through e-mail or speak one over
the phone.

-- 

Debbie

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Debra Lords			Experience is what you
dlords at library.utah.edu		have just right after 
ACLIS Labs			you need it.
585-9810

Thomas Dowling wrote:
> 
> > As for using upper case, you can usually tell who's using a Microsoft
> > product for serving their pages since they announce that one should
> NEVER
> > use upper case in file names.
> 
> I'm not sure where you're going with this, but this statement misses the
> mark by a fair bit.  Microsoft web servers are case INsensitive; NT and
> Win9x store files in a case sensitive way, but retrieve them in a case
> insensitive way, a trait they pass on to IIS.
> 
> Compare:
>   http://www.microsoft.com/NTServer/WEB/Default.asp
>   http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/web/default.asp
>   http://www.microsoft.com/NtSeRvEr/WeB/dEfAuLt.AsP
> 
>  Use what makes sense...just keep it
> > well-organized. The real problem (on almost ANY platform...can't think
> of
> > any right away to the contrary) is having SPACES in the file names. (I
> did
> > see some in your directory/path names in your code...)
> 
> This isn't a show stopper: any reasonable server would URL-encode the
> spaces ("our%20home%20page.html").  You would need to remind authors to
> code links that way, though, since many browsers will not encode the
> spaces themselves.
> 
> In either case, the problem is not tied to the operating system; it has to
> do with simplifying things for the user.  Users do type in URLs by hand,
> they do mail them to friends, and it does matter if your URLs are as easy
> for humans to manipulate as for computers.  That's why it's worth fighting
> your computer Powers That Be for, say, http://library.foo.edu/ rather than
> http://www.foo.edu/Departments/Info-Services/Library/home.html
> 
> Thomas Dowling
> OhioLINK - Ohio Library and Information Network
> tdowling at ohiolink.edu

-- 

Debbie

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Debra Lords			Experience is what you
dlords at library.utah.edu		have just right after 
ACLIS Labs			you need it.
585-9810