498118 - TITLE HTTP header is unsupported

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Core :: DOM: Core & HTML, defect)

Description

[Eli Grey (:sephr)]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US-Hixie; rv:1.9.0.11) Gecko/2009060309 Ubuntu/9.04 (jaunty) Firefox/3.0.11
Build Identifier: 

If this header is implemented, it should apply to all documents, as is for the LINK header. Supporting the TITLE header will make it possible to change the title of "foobar.txt" from "http://foo.example/some/long/path/foobar.txt" to "The Adventures of Foobar". This is more convenient and visually appealing to users than seeing the URI in the tab/title bar. Another important use case is images.
I have been sending TITLE headers on documents which otherwise can't have titles for a while (I assumed this bug has already been submitted here, which it seems it hasn't) and fixing bug this would instantly improve their usability.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
Content-Type: image/png
Title: Skydiving on June 13, 2009

...image data...

Actual Results:  
Image is displayed without "Skydiving on June 13, 2009" title.

Expected Results:  
Image is displayed with "Skydiving on June 13, 2009" title.

http://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/Object_Headers.html#title

Comment 1

[:Ms2ger (he/him; ⌚ UTC+1/+2)]

The specification you cite [1] is an underspecified, unstable working draft. [2] The Title: header was mentioned only in passing in the final HTTP 1.0 [3], and it was dropped entirely in HTTP 1.1 [4], as Jim Gettys considered it "Evil". [5] I don't think it is reasonable to support this, unless possibly if a clearer specification is submitted to the IETF for standardization.

[1] http://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/Object_Headers.html#title
[2] http://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/HTTP2.html
[3] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1945.txt
[4] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2616.txt
[5] http://ftp.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/http/hypermail/1996q3/0145.html

Comment 2

[Eli Grey (:sephr)]

(In reply to comment #1)

Surely, calling it Title instead of Subject (if that's what Gettys is considering evil) would be more appropriate for documents instead of messages using MIME. I agree that a clearer specification should be submitted, but it does seem appropriate to implement for media types that do not provide title meta information (most image formats and plain text files).

Sorta-related: Since we natively support Theroa in OGG, wouldn't it make sense that we use the title metadata as the page title?