The <object> element
In XHTML Strict the only way to include content other than images is
to use the <object> element. As an alternative you can provide a link to
a file using the standard <a> element, but this opens up the content on
a new page (or even worse in another application).
Basic syntax
<object type="mime/type" data="source.file"
width="450" height="150">
put alternative content here in case
browser can't display it
</object>
The type attribute refers to the actual MIME type of the content and
the data attribute is the URL to the actual content.
Some examples are:
- text/plain
- Plain text files
- text/xml
- XML data files
- image/gif
- GIF image
There are scores of MIME types and each identifies a particular type
of document.
For example:
<object type="text/plain" data="readme.txt"
width="450" height="50">
<a href="readme.txt">Read me!</a>
</object>
Results in:
For a browser which cannot display the object you would see the alternative; in this case:
Checkout the examples of different objects using the basic syntax.
Note: you may get variable results, depending on your browser. For
example, Internet Explorer 7 does not like the 'image/jpg' MIME type.
The basic syntax works for a range of content, but in most not
trivial cases you
will want to use some of the more advanced features.