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Web Slice Format Specification - Version 0.9

  • Article

Web Slice Format Specification - Version 0.9 New for Windows Internet Explorer 8

A Web Slice allows users to subscribe to a portion of a Web page. The Web Slice format consists of the minimum HTML annotations necessary to enable the publication and consumption of a mutable item on a Web page. Web publishers can use this format in conjunction with properties from hAtom Microformat World Wide Web link to make portions of a Web page subscribe-able.

This document explains the Web Slice format.

  • Web Slice Example 
  • Basic Properties 
  • Expiration Property 
  • Alternative Properties 
  • Bandwidth Properties 
  • Licensing Information 
  • Revisions 
  • Related Topics

Web Slice Example

The following example shows how a Web Slice is defined on a Web page for an auction.

<div class="hslice" id="slice1">
   <p class="entry-title">Game System - $66.00</p>
   <div class="entry-content">
      <img src="game.jpg">
      <p>Auction ends: <abbr class="endtime" title="2008-02-28T12:00:00-05:00">6 hours</abbr></p>
   </div>
   <a rel="feedurl" href="www.ebay.com/game.xml">Subscribe to Feed</a>
   <p>This item updates every <span class="ttl">15</span> minutes.</p>
</div>

Basic Properties

The basic properties of a Web Slice are the Web Slice container, Entry Title, and Entry Content.

Web Slice

  • Required
  • Uses the class name hslice
  • Must include an id
  • Represents the entire region of the Web Slice that contains the title, description, and other Web Slice properties

Entry Title

Entry Content

  • Optional
  • Uses the class name entry-content as defined in the hAtom Microformat

Expiration Property

The Expiration property is used to indicate when an item is no longer active. For example, an auction item ends tomorrow or a flight arrives at 7:00 P.M. today.

End Time

Alternative Properties

These properties are used to specify different sources for display and navigation.

Alternative Display Source

  • Optional
  • Uses the rel name entry-content
  • Indicates the Web page for the display from the value of the href attribute

Alternative Navigation

  • Optional
  • Uses the rel name bookmark as defined in the hAtom Microformat World Wide Web link
  • Indicates the resource to use for navigation from the value of the href attribute

Bandwidth Properties

Sites can also specify properties to control how Internet Explorer updates a Web Slice.

Time to Live

  • Optional
  • Uses class name ttl
  • Represents the concept of Really Simple Syndication (RSS) 2.0 ttl element
  • Value must be expressed as minutes (integer)

Alternative Update Source

Alternatively, specify a different source from which to get updates.

  • Optional
  • Uses the rel name feedurl
  • The href attribute indicates the Web Slice or feed from which to get updates

Licensing Information

Microsoft's copyrights in this specification are dedicated to the public domain under the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication. To view a copy of this dedication, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain World Wide Web link. There is a separate patent promise called the Microsoft Open Specification Promise, available to parties interested in implementing software that conforms to this specification. This patent promise is available at https://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/default.mspx.

Revisions

Version 0.9

  • Added Alternative Display Source property
  • Added Alternative Navigation property
  • Updated Alternative Update Source property to allow reference to a Web Slice

Version 0.8

  • First release