We know that in order for a web server to recognize an SSI-enabled HTML file and carry out necessary instructions, the filename should end with a special .shtml extension.

It is therefore obvious that lack of shtml method in jQuery is a glaring mistake, and should be added as soon as possible.

Note that jQuery already has html method but not shtml one -- an inconsistency that should be avoided at all cost.

We should carefully plan the exact behavioral differences between new shtml method and existing html method (http://api.jquery.com/html/) in order to avoid breaking web compatibility across the extensive range of environments.

My suggestion is to consider returning only valid HTML2.0 markup (http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html-spec/html-spec_toc.html) such as:

el.html(); // <span style="color:red;font-size:7px;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:underline">word</span>
el.shtml(); // <B><U><FONT SIZE=7 COLOR=RED>word</FONT></U></B

>