This applies to source code of any kind from any platform; and to a large extent any Unix-style formats that are specially parsed but also happen to be somewhat text readable. But trying to make a list defeats the purpose. Better to always show the option, or make it an expert feature that you can turn on and then it always shows the option.
Basically there are applications bound to extensions/types but in some cases we want to look at the file very briefly rather than work in the default application, and considering that Firefox already has a perfectly good mechanism to display plain text files, it's a shame not to simply give the user a faster route into that mode.
An argument could be made that an array of XML-based formats could be given analogous treatment - i.e. when you click on a KML file instead of running Google Earth you could have an option to "Render as plain XML". But this isn't as needed I think, and in fact the plain text rendering would often be sufficient for that as well. But it's something else to think about. In this case you could offer that option only if the file starts with "<?xml".
Kris is correct w.r.t. my original intent.
This applies to source code of any kind from any platform; and to a large extent any Unix-style formats that are specially parsed but also happen to be somewhat text readable. But trying to make a list defeats the purpose. Better to always show the option, or make it an expert feature that you can turn on and then it always shows the option.
Basically there are applications bound to extensions/types but in some cases we want to look at the file very briefly rather than work in the default application, and considering that Firefox already has a perfectly good mechanism to display plain text files, it's a shame not to simply give the user a faster route into that mode.
An argument could be made that an array of XML-based formats could be given analogous treatment - i.e. when you click on a KML file instead of running Google Earth you could have an option to "Render as plain XML". But this isn't as needed I think, and in fact the plain text rendering would often be sufficient for that as well. But it's something else to think about. In this case you could offer that option only if the file starts with "<?xml".