Re: Single Browser Intranets (was: Web Accessibility Myths)

(I'm redirecting  this to the PF group because this is a good instance
of the server using the user-agent field to make a draconian
decision as to what you deserve to get ...)

As an another example 
of the same problem (one I mentioned to Daniel last week
check out broadcast.yahoo.com)

The story about Altavista gets worse adn worse 
I'm giving up and switching to google --but it may be
worthwhile as part of the  wai/PF/gl activities to run a few
experiments.

Here is what I found:
(using Netscape, Lynx and W3)

1) They always send lynx directly to the text only page.
2) When they do so, search results in lynx come out right 
--I think they serve the right HTML
3) However, the lynx user does not get a shot at doing a
usenet search etc.
--All those are on the graphcis only page which does view
with Emacs/W3.

4) Emacs/W3 by default gets served up some weird html
   results when it goes to the textonly page--
--this is how I got the results all wrapped in <PRE>...</PRE>
however if you go through the graphics page, then it gets
   served the right result.
5) You can get to the usenet and news searches from Emacs/W3
   through the graphics page, but it wont do you much good, because they check the browser
   before serving you the answer, and throw you out if
   you're not IE or Netscape.
The page comes up saying "go get a frames capable browser"
--emacs/W3 is frames capable though they dont acknowledge this.

Topic for PF:
We need to get a list of capability strings passed in the
http headers 
--rather than the age old kluge of the server looking at the
user-agent string.
This issue is bigger than access, Daniel, could you pass it
to whoever you are liasing with in HTTP-NG land?

-- 
Best Regards,
--raman
------------------------------------------------------------

IBM Research: Human Language Technologies
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Received on Tuesday, 26 October 1999 13:31:01 UTC