The <PLAINTEXT> attribute is not implemented in Mozilla. This is a depricated element, but it would be nice if it was implemented for backwards compatibility. It is implemented in the current versions of Netscape Communicator (4.7) and Internet Explorer (5.0).

The <PLAINTEXT> element is considered not deprecated, but obsolete in HTML 4: see Appendix A, section A.3.1, "Changes to elements", in the HTML 4 spec -- <URL:http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/appendix/changes.html#h-A.3.1>. In the HTML 32. spec, dated 14 Jan 1997, says this under <URL:http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html32.html#pre>: > XMP, LISTING and PLAINTEXT > > <![ %HTML.Deprecated [ > > <!ENTITY % literal "CDATA" > -- historical, non-conforming parsing mode where > the only markup signal is the end tag > in full > --> > > <!ELEMENT (XMP|LISTING) - - %literal> > <!ELEMENT PLAINTEXT - O %literal> > > ]]> > These are obsolete tags for preformatted text that predate the introduction > of PRE. User agents may support these for backwards compatibility. Authors > should avoid using them in new documents! <PRE> should be used instead. The HTML 2.0 spec, dated Sept 22, 1995, does not mention <PLAINTEXT> at all, but has this to say about LISTING and XMP at <URL:http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html-spec/html-spec_5.html#SEC5.5.2>: > The XMP and LISTING elements are similar to the PRE element, but they have a > different syntax. Their content is declared as CDATA, which means that no > markup except the end-tag open delimiter-in-context is recognized (see 9.6 > "Delimiter Recognition" of [SGML]). (18) > > Since CDATA declared content has a number of unfortunate interactions with > processing techniques and tends to be used and implemented inconsistently, > HTML documents should not contain XMP nor LISTING elements -- the PRE tag > is more expressive and more consistently supported. All in all, it appears that <PLAINTEXT> has not been recommended for use in HTML documents for close to 5 years now. The only question is, should it be recognized in NavQuirks mode anyway, for 4.x parity?

Oops, should have dug just a bit further. <PLAINTEXT> was actually considered obsolete in HTML 1.0! It was a hack to allow a document sent by HTTP to contain a text/plain section following an HTML section. See the 1994 HTML 1.0 spec, <URL:http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/1995-archive/html-spec.html>: > Plaintext > > Status: Obsolete . > > The empty PLAINTEXT tag terminates the HTML entity. What follows is not SGML. > In stead, there's an old HTTP convention that what follows is an > ASCII (MIME "text/plain") body. > > An example if its use is: > > <PLAINTEXT> > 0001 This is line one of a ling listing > 0002 file from <any@host.inc.com> which is sent > > This tag allows the rest of a file to be read efficiently without parsing. > Its presence is an optimization. There is no closing tag. The rest of the > data is not in SGML. So <PLAINTEXT> is not really an element at all, it's more of a processing instruction for a UA to stop parsing and just spit out the rest of the file. In the modern world of mutable Document Object Models, that doesn't sound reasonable. Marking as INVALID.

vrfy

SPAM. HTML Element component deprecated, changing component to Layout. See bug 88132 for details.

*** Bug 275038 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***