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What are Clicklets?

Clicklets are the small, usually orange-colored buttons that provide access to web pages, blog posts, articles or other information in alternate formats, such as RSS feeds. The name "Clicklets" is similar to the trademarked name of rectangularly-shaped chewing gum that sounds like "chicklets" (which are actually young chickens, but not spelled the same as the trademarked name), because the shape of Clicklets reminds people of the shape of the pieces of that brand of gum.

Which version of HTML should be used to build a web site?
HTML Version Clicklet Appearance Recommended File Extension Development Targets
2008 HTML 5 (draft) with HTML Style Sheets with X-UA-Compatible: IE=8 HTTP header HTML 5 Style Sheet .xhtml5 new development for IE6, IE7, IE8 and standards-compliant browsers such as Firefox when there are elements, such as navigation, that are common to multiple pages on the site which can be put into templates
2008 HTML 5 (draft) with HTML Style Sheets, no X-UA-Compatible HTTP header IE 7 Style Sheet .xhtml5 previously existing documents for IE6, IE7 with elements, such as navigation, that are common to multiple pages on the site that have been put into templates
2008 HTML 5 (draft) XML without HTML Style Sheets with X-UA-Compatible: IE=8 HTTP header HTML 5 XML .html5 new development for IE6, IE7, IE8 and standards-compliant browsers such as Firefox when there is no similarity among different pages on the site
2008 HTML 5 (draft) XML without HTML Style Sheets, no X-UA-Compatible HTTP header IE7 HTML 5 XML .html5 previously existing documents for IE6, IE7 when there is no similarity among different pages on the site
2008 HTML 5 (draft) non-XML IE 4+ HTML 5 .htm5 IE4+ and older browsers
1999 through 2007 XHTML 1.x with HTML Style Sheets XHTML 1 Style Sheet .xhtml standards-compliant browsers such as Firefox
1999 through 2007 XHTML 1.x without HTML Style Sheets XHTML 1 .html full screen browsers that do not support HTML style sheets
2006 XHTML 2 (draft) with HTML Style Sheets XHTML 2 Style Sheet .xhtml2  
2006 XHTML 2 (draft) without HTML Style Sheets XHTML 2 .html2  
1997 HTML 4.01 HTML 4 .htm IE4+ and older browsers, browsers that prefer the DOS 8.3 file naming convention
Which version of HTML should be for cell phones and other wireless mobile or handheld devices?
HTML Version Clicklet Appearance Recommended File Extension Development Targets
XHTML Mobile Profile 1.0 XHTML Mobile .mp Internet-enabled cell phones and other wireless mobile or handheld devices
WML 1.0 WML Mobile .wml older wireless devices
Clicklets for feed readers and podcast catchers.

These are listed in more-or-less ascending chronological order. More recent specifications have attempted to correct the biggest limitation of those based on RSS 0.92, which is that the names of some elements are not qualified with a namespace URI. However, the Really Simple Syndication flavors of RSS are still more commonly used in practice, so RSS 0.92 v2.0 is the version currently recommended unless the feed needs to be aggregated with content from other namespaces. (In all versions of RSS based on RSS 0.92, the primary element names are in the null namespace, so although elements from other namespaces may be included in feed documents, the null-namespaced elements such as channel and item cannot be aggregated with other content as easily as those from formats which have elements that are qualified with a namespace URI.) This recommendation may change depending on how well a future version of the RDF flavor of RSS ( RSS 1.1 or RSS 2.0) or of Atom becomes adopted.

Document Format Clicklet Appearance Recommended File Extension Development Targets
RSS 0.92 v2.0 with XML Style Sheet RSS 0.92 v2.0 .rss standalone documents for feed readers and IE6, IE7 or IE8
RSS 0.92 v2.0 RSS 0.92 v2.0 .rss standalone documents for feed readers
RSS 1.0 with XML Style Sheet RDF RSS 1.0 .rdf documents for feed readers and IE6, IE7 or IE8 that may need to be aggregated with content from other namespaces
RSS 1.0 RDF RSS 1.0 .rdf documents for feed readers that may need to be aggregated with content from other namespaces
  RSS 1.x RSS 2.x   DO NOT USE. Although some implementers omit "RDF" from the text on Clicklets for the RDF version of RSS and hope users will be able to determine the heredity simply from the version number, this will become even more confusing when the specifications of RDF RSS are updated to the next major version after RSS 1.x, namely RSS 2.x.
Atom 1.0 with XML Style Sheet Atom 1.0 .rss documents for feed readers and IE6, IE7 or IE8 that may need to be aggregated with content from other namespaces
Atom 1.0 Atom 1.0 .rss documents for feed readers that may need to be aggregated with content from other namespaces
Media
Document Format Clicklet Appearance Recommended File Extension Development Targets
MPEG-3 MPEG-3 Audio .mp3 audio podcast receivers
Windows Media Video Windows Video .wmv video podcast receivers or iTunes on the Windows platform
QuickTime QuickTime Video .mov iTunes on the Windows or Apple Mac OS X platform
MPEG-4 Video MPEG-4 Video .mp4 video podcast receivers or iTunes on the Apple Mac OS X platform; (results in various messages on the Windows platform including:
  • The selected file has an extension (.mp4) that is not recognized ....
  • Codec acquired
  • The Player might not support the file type or might not support the codec that was used to compress the file.
)
Other formats
Document Format Clicklet Appearance Recommended File Extension Development Targets
PDF PDF .pdf printers
RDF RDF Metadata .rdf Symantic Web clients
XML 1.0 with XML Style Sheet XML .xml IE6, IE7, IE8 and standards-compliant browsers such as Firefox

Last updated Wednesday February 6, 2008


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About Clicklets

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