title: Using HTTP OPTIONS to retrieve information about REST resources
body: <p>This problem relates to the Restlet framework and Java</p>
  
  <p>When a client wants to discover the resources available on a server - they must send an HTTP request with OPTIONS as the request type.  This is fine I guess for non human readable clients - i.e. in code rather than a browser.  </p>
  
  <p>The problem I see here is - browsers (human readable) using GET, will NOT be able to quickly discover the resources available to them and find out some extra help documentation etc - because they do not use OPTIONS as a request type.</p>
  
  <p>Is there a way to make a browser send an OPTIONS/GET request so the server can fire back formatted XML to the client (as this is what happens in Restlet - i.e. the server response is to send all information back as XML), and display this in the browser?
  Or have I got my thinking all wrong - i.e. the point of OPTIONS is that is meant to be used inside a client's code and not meant to be read via a browser.</p>