Re: lynx and image maps

On Thu, 1 Feb 1996, Philippe-Andre Prindeville wrote:
> On Jan 31, 22:14, Brian Behlendorf wrote:
> > Sure, but the imagemap functionality on the server-side could.  When 
> > a client makes a request to a map resource without coordinates, the cgi 
> > program (or the functionality in the server if the imagemap-functionality 
> > is built-in) could return a menu of the links available instead of the 
> > silly "your browser does not support imagemaps" error message.
> 
> Do you really want the user to be able to see all of the links?

Sometimes, sure.  Look, I brought it up because someone made the comment 
that server-side imagemaps were a travesty for nongraphical clients, and 
I was hoping to show that that wasn't true.  Obviously you run into the 
same problem with client-side imagemaps.  

> Sometimes you just want the user choose the appropriate coordinates,
> and do his thing...  Say you have a fairly dense weather map, that gives
> you the current weather for 900 airports in North America.  Would
> you want some user trying *all* the coordinates just out of a "gee-wiz"
> reflex?  This service might be offered freely because it isn't too much
> of a burden on your resources.  As soon as some dweeb comes and
> starts doing a "breadth-first" search of your Web info, and possibly
> incurring significant CPU or network bandwidth utilisation, then you
> might rethink altruistically offeirng something to the Web.

Or you might think about using a robots.txt file.

> I think browsers (like MSIE and netscape) that print out the HREF
> portion of a <a> are a bad thing, but then it's too late for that to
> be changed now.

I strongly disagree - I want to know where I'm going before I try to go 
there.  I might be something of a "power user", sure, but I don't think 
this is a very abstract notion or uncommon desire.  I get extremely 
annoyed when I see JavaScript code that puts a scrolling text block in 
the same window in NS2.0 - for example, check out the 
CNNfn home page <URL:http://www.cnnfn.com/>.

	Brian

--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--
brian@organic.com  brian@hyperreal.com  http://www.[hyperreal,organic].com/

Received on Thursday, 1 February 1996 19:42:22 UTC