Configuring a web server for Xara files

If you want to put Xara files on your web pages using the Xara plug-in, you will need to configure your server to use the correct MIME type when it transfers Xara files. MIME types are a standard way of determining the content of a file while it is transmitted across the Internet, and are appended to the file in a standard header. For instance, every HTML file is transmitted with the MIME type 'text/html', so that anything receiving it can recognize it as HTML and treat it accordingly.

The way servers are set up by default, they transmit WEB files and XAR files with a default setting of 'text/plain'. This causes the browser to attempt to display them on screen as text, which will generate a stream of gibberish, or a complaint from your browser that there isn't a plug-in for 'text/plain' files available.

You need to configure your server to recognize Xara files. Xara files have the MIME type 'application/vnd.xara' .

To configure your own server

If you run your own Web server on your machine, you will probably need to add a line to a file called mime.types or something similar (mime.typ on Microsoft's NT server, for example). This file is usually a list of MIME types and file extensions in the format "mimetype/subtype .extn". There can be more than one extension for each mime type, or no extension at all. For instance, here are a few typical entries in a mime.types file:

application/postscript ai eps ps

application/slate

application/x-csh csh

application/x-dvi dvi

image/gif gif

image/jpeg jpeg jpg jpe

image/tiff tiff tif

You will therefore need to add this line to the file:

application/vnd.xara xar web cmx cdr

You will usually then need to restart the server. There may be a configuration utility supplied with the server to do this automatically. Adding to the MIME types on a server is a very common operation, and the documentation that came with your server will describe how to do it.

To configure someone else's server

If your Web pages are on another machine, for example one run by your Internet Service Provider, contact the Server administrator and ask them to add the appropriate MIME type. They will need to know the MIME type and the file extension.