XEP-0088: Client Webtabs

WARNING: Consideration of this document has been Deferred by the XMPP Standards Foundation. Implementation of the protocol described herein is not recommended.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

Webtabs are a way for servers to specify a number to web pages which can be used in clients and displayed like the web-based services in Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger and JIM. This enables a server administrator to easily create services for Jabber clients and also help to integrate Jabber clients with existing web-based applications.

2. Requirements

The motivations for this document are:

• To enable servers to specify a selection of web-based services for use in a client.
• To allow easy integration with existing web-based systems.
• To give more value to people's Jabber services over another's.
• To allow the creation of virtually limitless web-based services for Jabber clients without clients needing to be specifically coded to support that service.

3. Use Cases

<iq 
    type='result'
    from='domain.com'
    to='user@domain/resource'
    id='disco1'>
  <query xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/disco#info'>
    <feature var='http://jabber.org/protocol/webtab'/>
  </query>
</iq>

<iq 
    type='result'
    from='domain.com'
    to='user@domain/resource'
    id='disco1'>
  <query xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/disco#items'>
    <item
        jid='webtabs.domain.com'
        name='Webtab Provider'/>
  </query>
</iq>

<iq 
    type='result'
    from='webtabs.domain.com'
    to='user@domain/resource'
    id='disco1'>
  <query xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/disco#info'>
    <feature var='http://jabber.org/protocol/webtab'/>
  </query>
</iq>

<iq
    to='domain.com'
    type='get'
    id='webtab1'>
  <query xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/webtab'/>
</iq>

<iq
    to='user@domain.com/resource'
    from='domain.com'
    type='result'
    id='webtab1'>
  <query xmlns='http://jabber.org/protocol/webtab'>
    <webtab type='email' id='em' name='Webmail'>
        http://tab.server.com/mail/
    </webtab>
    <webtab type='bookmark' id='bk' name='Bookmarks'>
        http://webtab.bookmarks.example.com/
    </webtab>
    <webtab type='calendar' id='cal' name='Calendar'>
        http://calendar.example.com/webtab/
    </webtab>
    <webtab type='news' id='nws' name='BBC News'>
        http://news.bbc.co.uk/webtab/
    </webtab>
  </query>
</iq>

<iq
    to='domain.com'
    type='get'
    id='prefs1'>
  <query xmlns='jabber:iq:private'>
    <prefs xmlns="webtab:prefs"/>
  </query>
</iq>

<iq
    to='user@domain.com/resource'
    from='domain.com'
    type='result'
    id='prefs1'>
  <query xmlns='jabber:iq:private'>
    <prefs xmlns='webtab:prefs'>
      <webtab id='em' visible='true'/>
      <webtab id='bk' visible='false'/>
      <webtab id='cal' visible='true'/>
    </prefs>
  </query>
</iq>

4. Implementation Notes

The following guidelines may assist client developers.

• Use the "type" attribute as a way of determining what services a webtab provides, you can then use this to possibly display appropriate icons to represent the webtab in the client UI.
• MUST use the "name" attribute when you have to refer to a webtab by name.
• MUST use the private storage specification provided to store information about which tabs SHOULD be visible.

5. Security Considerations

It is recommended that XEP-0101 be used to provide transparent authentication of the webtabs.

6. IANA Considerations

No IANA interaction required.

7. XMPP Registrar Considerations

The XMPP Registrar [4] will need to register the new namespace of "http://jabber.org/protocol/webtab" and possibly the list of offical types will need to be managed too.

Appendices

Appendix A: Document Information

Series: XEP
Number: 0088
Publisher: XMPP Standards Foundation
Status: Deferred
Type: Informational
Version: 0.4
Last Updated: 2004-03-14
Approving Body: XMPP Council
Dependencies: XMPP Core, XEP-0030, XEP-0049
Supersedes: None
Superseded By: None
Short Name: webtab
Source Control: HTML
This document in other formats: XML  PDF

Appendix B: Author Information

Appendix C: Legal Notices

Appendix D: Relation to XMPP

The Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) is defined in the XMPP Core (RFC 3920) and XMPP IM (RFC 3921) specifications contributed by the XMPP Standards Foundation to the Internet Standards Process, which is managed by the Internet Engineering Task Force in accordance with RFC 2026. Any protocol defined in this document has been developed outside the Internet Standards Process and is to be understood as an extension to XMPP rather than as an evolution, development, or modification of XMPP itself.

Appendix E: Discussion Venue

The primary venue for discussion of XMPP Extension Protocols is the <standards@xmpp.org> discussion list.

Discussion on other xmpp.org discussion lists might also be appropriate; see <http://xmpp.org/about/discuss.shtml> for a complete list.

Errata can be sent to <editor@xmpp.org>.

Appendix F: Requirements Conformance

The following requirements keywords as used in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119: "MUST", "SHALL", "REQUIRED"; "MUST NOT", "SHALL NOT"; "SHOULD", "RECOMMENDED"; "SHOULD NOT", "NOT RECOMMENDED"; "MAY", "OPTIONAL".

Appendix G: Notes

Appendix H: Revision History

Note: Older versions of this specification might be available at http://xmpp.org/extensions/attic/

END