Mews Profile is the format behind the Mews project at mews.page. It is a small-web format built from a strict subset of XHTML Mobile Profile 1.2, a shared default stylesheet, and simple subscription conventions. Mews pages are ordinary web pages: they open in any browser and on WAP 2.0 phones, and dedicated clients can render them with their own presentation.
This specification is published under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International. The software published with it, including the validator and the default stylesheet, is published under Apache License 2.0; the stylesheet is deliberately not share-alike, because section 5.2 asks every site to host its own copy of it.
This is a working draft (0.1). The name keeps the "MP" of XHTML-MP, turning Mobile Profile into Mews Profile. Each version is published at mews.page/spec/\<version> (this one at mews.page/spec/0.1), and mews.page/spec/ always points to the latest. Everything here is open to change.
### Core principle
**Authors provide structure. Readers control presentation.**
Every rule in this spec follows from that principle. Scripts and author styling are excluded because they take control from the reader. The default stylesheet exists so readers without a dedicated client still get good presentation. The conformance marker exists so clients know when they may apply their own presentation.
### Goals
- Pages that are small, fast, readable, and free of tracking.
- No special protocol, server, proxy, or client required to read a page.
- Every conforming page is valid XHTML-MP 1.2 apart from two attributes (section 3), so it works on real WAP 2.0 handsets.
- A format simple enough to write by hand and to implement a client for in a weekend.
## 2. Conventions and terminology
The key words MUST, MUST NOT, SHOULD, SHOULD NOT and MAY are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.
| Term | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| Mews page | An XHTML-MP 1.2 document that follows every MUST rule in this spec and carries the conformance marker. |
| Mews site | A set of Mews pages under one registered domain. |
| Author | Whoever writes or publishes Mews pages. |
| Client | Any software that displays Mews pages: a dedicated Mews client, an ordinary browser, or a WAP phone. |
| Mews client | A client that recognizes the conformance marker and applies its own presentation. |
| Default stylesheet | The shared CSS file published with this spec (section 5). |
| Entry | A dated link that a client can treat as a post (section 6). |
## 3. Document format
A Mews page MUST be a well-formed, valid XHTML-MP 1.2 document that also follows the restrictions in section 4, with one exception: it MAY carry the lang and dir attributes, which XHTML-MP lacks. Browsers need lang to know a page's language when it is served as text/html, and dir to show right-to-left text; old WAP browsers ignore both. Apart from these two attributes, the rules only remove or restrict features, so every Mews page is otherwise valid XHTML-MP.
A Mews page MUST begin with an XML declaration specifying UTF-8, followed by the XHTML-MP 1.2 doctype. Either quote character may be used in the declaration, as XML allows:
The root element MUST be `<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">` and SHOULD carry `xml:lang` and `lang` attributes with the same value, naming the page language, plus `dir="rtl"` for right-to-left languages such as Hebrew and Arabic.
### 3.2 Conformance marker
A Mews page MUST include this element in its `<head>`:
```xml
<metaname="mews-profile"content="0.1"/>
```
The `content` value is the spec version the page follows. A Mews client MUST NOT apply Mews presentation to a page without the marker; such a page is ordinary XHTML-MP.
### 3.3 Head
The `<head>` MUST contain a `<title>` and the conformance marker (3.2). It MAY contain `<meta name="description">`, `<meta name="author">`, `<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" />`, `<link rel="icon">` pointing to the same site, the stylesheet link (section 5) and feed links (section 6). Nothing else is permitted in the head. Pages SHOULD include the viewport tag, so modern phones show them at readable size.
## 4. Elements and attributes
Mews Profile keeps the structural parts of XHTML-MP 1.2 and removes everything that controls appearance or behavior. Anything not listed in 4.1 is excluded, notably script, event attributes such as onclick, the style element and attribute, object, meta refresh, and big and small.
### 4.1 Permitted elements and attributes
| Group | Elements |
| --- | --- |
| Structure | `html`, `head`, `title`, `body` |
| Headings | `h1`–`h6` |
| Text blocks | `p`, `blockquote`, `pre`, `address`, `hr` |
Only the attributes below are permitted; any other attribute MUST NOT appear. `id`, `title`, `xml:lang`, `lang` and `dir` are permitted on every element in the body; `lang` and `dir` are the Mews extensions described in section 3. `class` is permitted only on `body` (section 5.3).
- **Links.** `href` MAY point anywhere. Links to non-Mews pages are allowed; clients decide how to open them.
- **Images.** An `img` MUST have an `alt` attribute: a description, or `alt=""` for decoration. It MUST NOT carry `width`, `height`, `align` or any other attribute that sizes, aligns or styles it. Each image is shown in its own block, at its natural size and never wider than the text column; the default stylesheet does this, and clients SHOULD do the same. Its `src` MUST point to the same site as the page (the same registered domain, so example.com and img.example.com both qualify) and MUST NOT be a `data:` URI. Formats SHOULD be GIF, JPEG or PNG, which every client and old handset can show. Each image SHOULD be under 50 KB. Authors SHOULD strip location and camera metadata. Text SHOULD NOT be presented only as an image; where it is, the alt attribute SHOULD carry that text.
- **Tables.** Tables are for data only. Tables MUST NOT be nested, and SHOULD use `th` for header cells.
- **Forms.** Forms SHOULD use `method="post"` for anything that changes server state.
- **`accesskey`.** Values SHOULD be the digits 0–9, which map to phone keypads.
### 4.3 Size
The page markup SHOULD be under 64 KB and MUST be under 256 KB. The page plus all its images SHOULD be under 320 KB.
## 5. Presentation
Authors MUST NOT style their pages. The only stylesheet a Mews page may reference is the default stylesheet, which gives ordinary browsers and phones good presentation. Mews clients ignore it and use their own.
### 5.1 The default stylesheet
The project publishes a versioned default stylesheet. Below is the complete version 0.1, `mews-0.1.css`; sites copy it unchanged (5.2). Its base rules MUST be valid WAP CSS so handsets can use it; `line-height`, `max-width` and the dark-mode block are enhancements that older parsers skip. Every text and link color meets 7:1 contrast against its background.
Sites SHOULD host their own copy rather than linking a central URL, so no single server sees traffic across all sites. A copy on another site is also a resource from another site, which section 7.4 forbids; the project's own copy at `mews.page/mews-0.1.css` is the one exception a validator tolerates, and it warns about it. Authors MUST NOT modify their copy, except to add @font-face rules that load font files from their own site; any other change makes the page non-conforming.
To let sites look distinct without author styling, `body` MAY carry one class from this list. The default stylesheet and Mews clients choose how each variant looks.
| Class | Intent |
| --- | --- |
| `mews-warm` | Warm palette |
| `mews-cool` | Cool palette |
| `mews-green` | Green palette |
| `mews-mono` | Monochrome, like an early phone screen |
Mews clients MAY ignore variants and instead derive colors from the hostname.
## 6. Subscriptions
Any Mews page can be subscribed to through dated links. Sites MAY also offer an Atom feed for ordinary feed readers.
### 6.1 Dated links
A link is an entry when it starts a list item (li) and its text begins with a date in `YYYY-MM-DD` format, followed by a space and a title:
The feed SHOULD contain the same entries as the dated-links page. Entry content in the feed, if any, SHOULD itself follow section 4.
## 7. Transport and serving
Mews pages are served over ordinary HTTP. No special server software is needed.
### 7.1 MIME type
Servers SHOULD send Mews pages as `text/html`, so browsers still display a page that has a small markup error. Servers MAY send `application/xhtml+xml`, or `application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml`, to clients whose `Accept` header prefers it. Mews clients parse pages as XML whatever the MIME type.
### 7.2 HTTPS and HTTP
Sites SHOULD serve over HTTPS. Because WAP 2.0 handsets cannot negotiate modern TLS, sites MAY also serve the same pages over plain HTTP. A site serving both MUST NOT redirect HTTP requests to HTTPS for clients that cannot follow it; a common approach is to redirect only when the `User-Agent` is a modern browser.
### 7.3 Caching
Servers SHOULD send `Last-Modified` or `ETag` headers so clients and aggregators can check for changes cheaply.
### 7.4 No tracking
Mews pages MUST NOT load resources from other sites. Servers MUST NOT set cookies on requests for Mews pages, except as part of a form the reader submits.
## 8. Clients
Any browser can read a Mews page. This section applies to Mews clients, which present pages their own way.
### 8.1 Requirements
A Mews client:
- MUST detect the conformance marker and apply Mews presentation only to pages that carry it.
- MUST ignore any author CSS, including the default stylesheet, and use its own presentation.
- MUST NOT execute scripts or event attributes, even on a page that wrongly includes them.
- MUST NOT load resources from sites other than the page's own site without the reader's action.
- MUST display a page that is not well-formed as a clear error, or offer to show its text; it MUST NOT silently guess.
### 8.2 Recommendations
A Mews client SHOULD:
- Let the reader choose fonts, sizes, colors and line width.
- Support `accesskey` as keyboard or keypad shortcuts.
- Support subscriptions through dated links (6.1) and Atom (6.2).
- Show a non-Mews page plainly, or hand it to the system browser, rather than refusing it.
- Mark links to non-Mews pages before the reader follows them, where it can tell.
### 8.3 Freedom
Clients MAY present pages in any way that keeps their structure intact, including reflowing tables on narrow screens, or hiding images until requested.
## 9. Validation, directory and versioning
### 9.1 Validation
A page conforms when it passes two checks:
1.**The Mews DTD.** The XHTML-MP 1.2 DTD, restricted as in section 4 and extended with lang and dir, published with each spec version at `mews.page/dtd/mews-<version>.dtd` (this one at `mews.page/dtd/mews-0.1.dtd`). It encodes the permitted elements and attributes (4.1), the head rules (3.3), the body variant values (5.3) and the ban on nested tables (4.2).
2.**Rule checks.** The rules a DTD cannot express: image sources, formats and sizes (4.2), page size (4.3), the default stylesheet link and its unmodified copy (5.2), and no resources from other sites (7.4).
Apart from lang and dir, every page that passes the Mews DTD is also valid XHTML-MP 1.2. Pages keep the XHTML-MP doctype from 3.1; the Mews DTD is used only by validators. The project publishes a validator that runs both checks and reports each failure with its section number, at mews.page/check and as a command line tool.
The project also hosts a copy of the original XHTML-MP 1.2 DTD at `mews.page/dtd/xhtml-mobile12.dtd`, so validation never depends on the Open Mobile Alliance's server. Browsers and clients MUST NOT fetch either DTD.
The Mews directory at mews.page/directory lists only sites whose pages pass validation. Anyone may submit a page address: the page is fetched and checked, and a page that passes lists its site at once. Nobody reviews submissions, and the directory holds no contact details.
Listed sites are rechecked periodically. A site whose page stops conforming is removed; submitting the page again once it is fixed lists the site again straight away. A site the checker simply cannot reach is retried for a few days before it is removed, because downtime is not a conformance failure. The checks say nothing about what a site publishes, so the project also removes a listing on request.
The spec version uses `MAJOR.MINOR`. A minor version may only relax rules or add recommendations, so pages valid under an earlier minor version remain valid. A major version may tighten rules. Clients SHOULD accept any version with a major number they support.
## Appendix A. Example Mews page
A complete conforming page with a posts list and a feed link:
```xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD XHTML Mobile 1.2//EN"
