Re: Minimal Browser Capabilities

unfortunately or fortunately, there are many reasons why lynx is pivotal
and we are lucky if it is the one chosen as minimal.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kynn Bartlett" <kynn-edapta@idyllmtn.com>
To: "Access Systems" <accessys@smart.net>
Cc: "Vadim Plessky" <lucy-ples@mtu-net.ru>; <sethmr@bellatlantic.net>;
<w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Tuesday, December 25, 2001 9:50 PM
Subject: Re: Minimal Browser Capabilities


At 4:28 PM -0500 12/25/01, Access Systems wrote:
>it does do HTML 4.01 I believe, pretty sure it won't do Javascript.
not
>sure about the others.

By "do HTML 4.01" do you mean "it fully supports everything in the
HTML 4.01 specification" or do you mean "if you give it HTML 4.01, it
can render it in some worthwhile manner?"  The two are not the same.

E.g. -- and I don't know this (but I'll download a version of Lynx
2.8.4 now and test) -- what exactly does it do with longdesc attributes?

>I guess that is a matter of opinion, it is pretty good at what it does
and
>while I have a later version of netscape, I so rarely run it because I
so
>like what LYNX does so much better.   especially it is "Clean and Fast"

I'm not stating a popularity contest of browsers here -- I like Lynx
myself -- but I feel that the limited capabilities of Lynx make it a
poor baseline for accessibility.  It is too limited of a browser to
make it the minimal browser; it doesn't meet the basic requirements
of a 21st century web access software system.

--Kynn

--
Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com>                 http://kynn.com
Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain            http://idyllmtn.com
Web Accessibility Expert-for-hire          http://kynn.com/resume
January Web Accessibility eCourse           http://kynn.com/+d201

Received on Wednesday, 26 December 2001 10:19:33 UTC