Re: Minimal Browser Capabilities

it's not considered a virtue.  It has been discovered that since lynx is
a static browser that java script does not fit into it.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kynn Bartlett" <kynn-edapta@idyllmtn.com>
To: "Access Systems" <accessys@smart.net>; "Vadim Plessky"
<lucy-ples@mtu-net.ru>
Cc: <sethmr@bellatlantic.net>; <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Monday, December 24, 2001 9:17 PM
Subject: Minimal Browser Capabilities


At 8:49 PM -0500 12/24/01, Access Systems wrote:
>On Tue, 25 Dec 2001, Vadim Plessky wrote:
>  > Of course, you need to have JavaScript enabled to get this code
working :-)
>  > // but you can't do any on-page browser detection without
>JavaScript, anyway.
>But Javascript is not normally on in Lynx.  (in fact I don't know how
to
>enable it in Lynx or if it is even possible)

Lynx doesn't do JavaScript.  This should be considered a serious
shortcoming
in Lynx, but instead it seems to be viewed as a virtue.  I'd really like
to see text browser that did JavaScript and CSS.

Anyway, the answer there would be a <noscript> fallback intended for
browsers which don't do JavaScript or which don't have JavaScript
enabled.

>I say it again, there should be no assumption what so ever that there
is
>any user side support for anything.

Surely you don't mean "for _anything_".  Do you assume client-side
support for HTML 2.0?  What about HTML 3.2?  What about HTML 4.01
Transitional?  What about HTML 4.01 Strict?  What about CSS level
1?  What about CSS level 2?  What about ECMAScript?  What about
DOM?

See, we need to assume some level of basic support.  Okay, so some
browsers won't measure up to it -- but some browsers (such as Lynx)
have not been reprogrammed in 5 years.  More recent browsers do
indeed have some degree of all of the above, so the answer simply
is to ask what is the reasonable level of support to expect, and
is it fair game to expect someone to be using a reasonable browser
when accessing your site?

--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 Tuesday, 25 December 2001 09:26:07 UTC