Re: Amaya

On Thu, 18 Sep 1997, Vincent QUINT wrote:
> > *** Errors in http://www.lesstif.org/:
> > line 23, char 96: Missing semicolon
> 
> This message tells you that the HTML file you have loaded contains an error.
> Line 23 in this file is:
> 
> LessTif is the <a href="http://www.hungry.com">Hungry Programmers</a>' version 
> of OSF/Motif&reg.
> 
> entity &reg should be terminated by a semicolon

This I understood -- although it was somewhat difficult to diagnose, given
that Amaya gave me no apparent way to see the raw HTML, let alone numbered
lines.  I had originally deleted that error message, but I thought it
might be helpful in discovering what, exactly, caused the Thot tool kit
errors.

> > via the "create links" hotlink once, but I can't reproduce it there,
> > either.
> 
> I can't reproduce it either...

Have you ever had it happen?

> > ... and there are numerous miscellaneous quibbles about usability which
> > probably aren't important, unless you intend people to use the browser.
> 
> If you have time to report on these quibbles, the Amaya team would be
> glad to consider how to improve usability.

- My backspace key generates the keysym Delete.  There doesn't seem to be
  any other way to delete the character to the left, such as Control-H.
- Most control-characters insert the printable-ascii version.  Control-K
  inserts a 'k'.  As a result, I use the mouse even for basic editing
  operations, such as deleting the entire contents of a field.
- There doesn't seem to be a way to view the raw HTML.  If there is, it's
  certainly not apparent, and it should be.
- When Amaya is fed a text file, it pretends that it's HTML, even if
  given text/plain as the MIME type. Transforming text to HTML for rendering 
  is not difficult.
- Double-clicking on the language SELECT on http://altavista.digital.com/ 
  yields a two-column menu, whose second column has entries like the
  following:

?
.
B%s
#
HTML
map
link
%d
?%d,%d
(I suspect this is a genuine bug, not just a quibble.)
- It's the slowest browser I've ever seen, when it comes to inline images.
  It reminds me of when Mosaic first implemented forms, and it was a bad
  idea to scroll less than a page at a time.  Loading
  http://gentle.dyn.ml.org/~kragen/ over a loopback interface takes more
  than ten seconds on my 5x86/133.  This file contains six embedded <img>s
  repeated many times, for a grand total of 1424 bytes of images.
- The input fields are focus-follows-mouse, which means a) you can't use
  keyboard shortcuts to get from one field to another; b) you have to be
  careful not to joggle the mouse when you're typing, since those fields
  are too small.
- And about keyboard shortcuts.  What keyboard shortcuts?  I have to use
  the mouse to navigate everything.
- Hitting <Return> in the only text field on a form doesn't submit it, the
  way it does in Netscape.  Perhaps this is really a preference issue.
- Double-clicking to follow hotlinks is a pain in the butt.  

> > I haven't tried the editor functionality.

... but I'll try it soon.

I hope this doesn't sound too critical.  I know a browser this nice is a
major project, and I'm quite impressed.  But little things tended to
bother me.

Kragen

Received on Thursday, 18 September 1997 15:25:53 UTC