This is a proposed rel attribute to link to Zero Install feed interface files to aid the automated discovery of program feeds by user agents, such as a navigator or web spider.
This profile file is in XMDP format, a proposed format for additionnal meta data informations.
The important part of the file is the next <dl> definition list,
the XMDP information is into it.
As the XMDP is simply XHTML, this
profile can be easily embedded in the actual documentation of Zero Install and said
documentation page linked directly in the <head>'s profile attribute.
An interface describes a program, library or other component.
This link, when used in a <link> tag, should be proposed for installation by the user-agent to the user in an non-obstrusive way,
according to the user's preferences, after the page is fully loaded. This kind of link can be used on a project's or application's homepage to
make installation easier.
When this link is used on an anchor (<a>), a graphical user-agent can ask to the user if they want to install
the linked application.
In every case, a spider user-agent can harvest the url of the feeds to treat them specially. As an example, a Zero Install search repository could be easily built, harvesting links to interfaces that way.
Due to limitations of the id attribute in XMDP and XHTML, the proposed name of the attribute is
zero-install.
This limitation is not present for the link types.
As there is no other commonly-used link type attribute starting with a number, it is more prudent to follow the same syntax as the xhtml names and ID.
This preliminary proposal has been authored by Samuel Dionne-Riel <samuel+nospamplease@dionne-riel.com>, 27 June 2009.