html or htm?

[dougie]

Hi all,

Is it better and more compatible with everyhting to have html or htm as the extension on web page files please?

I'm just about to start a web site, that will, when it's finished, have about 400 pages, so I would like to get it straight from the start.

It probably works ok both ways, but is one better than the other?

[twist]

cruft-free URLs

I didn't know that this is what they were called but I once experimented with this. I don't know anything about psuedo-names or whatever but a really simple way to do it is simply name all your files index.whatever and then put each file in a folder with it's name. You can of course use .htaccess to open up whatever file name you choose as the index file. This could mean a lot of extra folders. If I recall you can make your .htaccess open a file called index.foo and then give it a alternative to open it.

I thought the point of doing the *cruft-free URLs* was for security purposes. Hiding your dynamic file type so hackers would have to guess at which language you were using. Not real security but more of a deterrent. I never thought about it as being a way to allow changes to your filetype without screwing up outside links to your website. That actually sounds pretty good. If php5 comes out and the extenstion was to change to ph2 or something I could update all my file names without updating any internal or external links. So I guess the good thing about using this method is deciding whether to use html or htm is moot as you would be better off using foo or fool.

I don't use the www though. Makes me think of a sub-domain. If you ever use sub-domains a lot of people might try and type your sub-domain like this subdomain.www.website.com and have to send you that inevatable email asking whats wrong. Not that many people use sub-domains.

[g1smd]

Even back in the days of 8.3 filenames in DOS and Windows 3.11, there always was the facility in the FTP program to rename the file from *.HTM to *.html after uploading it to the server. Not a lot of people knew that.

Extensionless URLs are also used with content negotiation.