~ryanlowe/blog: The Missing Lynx

The Missing Lynx

"I can read my Yahoo mail in Lynx. I can shop at Amazon in Lynx. If your web site doesn�t work in Lynx, your web site is thoroughly, thoroughly fucked."

I couldn't agree more. I don't know if it's for exactly the same reasons though, I'm a browser purist where Mark seems to be an accessibility guy, but I think we're both after the same thing. I won't try to speak for him with my own little rant about web applications, below.

The bottom line for me is this: web browsers are meant to show pages of text, not host elaborate client-side applications. Sure, forms are built into browsers and they are OK but there's a fine line of interactivity there. Accessibility concerns remind us how far we are actually straying from the main browser idea. If you have to wonder if your web site is accessible, it's probably not designed right for everyone else either.

People are doing all sorts of wrong things with browsers these days. Sure, you can do a lot of magic if you only design for IE6 but where's that going to get you when your whole intranet upgrades to IE7 and breaks your fragile, flashy custom HTML/Javascript widgets and features (and to top it all off, without warning)? Thinking long term means that you don't design for a specific browser at all.

I'm not even going to start bleating about web standards because the standards are a steaming pile. What good are standards if the browser that over 80% of us use doesn't follow them? We can bitch all we want about IE's standards breakage but just because we prescribe standards doesn't mean they have to be followed.

Besides, has the W3C considered how many current web apps would break if IE suddenly fixed their standards compliance? Most of these are custom intranet web applications that most of us never see, dependent on a specific browser version. Sure, this is a mess that the IE team created themselves; they've dug a hole. But the "developers" happily making wizz-bang widgets (div-based tabs are an example) in HTML/DOM/Javascript all of these years can share the blame too. This goes all the way back to IE-specific enhancements to DHTML in IE4.

So the best thing to do is follow the leaders in web applications: eBay, Amazon, Yahoo and Google and design for the least common denominator. Sure, your web application won't look all cool or do ultra neat things but it will get the job done in any browser you stick it in. That's something you can pat yourself on the back about.

I think it's for the best because it prevents smart people from putting too much effort into writing applications for a browser "platform" that never was. We need a real web platform, and if open source can't create one Longhorn will beat them to it. XUL is getting very warm indeed.

Posted at April 13, 2004 at 10:29 AM EST
Last updated April 13, 2004 at 10:29 AM EST

Comments

About 6-8 years ago, when I used to get Internet access via a SLIP connection in a Telnet session, I used to use Lynx as my main browser. As well, I strictly used Pine (Washington University) for 4 years to access my email.

Now I'll tell you one thing, my main blog entry are very readable in Lynx at the present moment, the rest of the other stuff like blogamp (Winamp plugin that outputs the songs I'm listening to via ftp to text files to be displayed via javascript) don't.

As well, my links, page header and footer, and other info in the side columns are actually javascript functions that I can edit in one file and then cascade the change dynamically to the rest of my site.

From a separating the content from the HTML point of view, I thing JavaScript and CSS have helped me out a lot in maintaince.

e.g.

[HTML Body]
pageHeader()
--body text--
pageFooter()
[HTML Body]

pageHeader() {
imageForTop.jpg
--HTMLlinks
--header text--
}

Is there an alternative to using javascript function calls to do things that I presently want to do? If you have a solution. You should post it :-)

» Posted by: roy at April 13, 2004 11:34 PM

Yes, including the files into the main file on the server side.

» Posted by: Ryan at April 14, 2004 12:17 AM

No server-side includes allowed. The solution must be client-site based...which at this point there are no present solutions to. And you already know about my ghetto attempt at getting a host.

» Posted by: roy at April 14, 2004 12:49 AM

And by this I mean store the header, footer and sidebar in seperate files and use a server side language like PHP to "include" them into the main file. PHP does this with the include(file) function call.

» Posted by: Ryan at April 14, 2004 12:49 AM

Yeah, bummer. Such a hack ... (voice) screen readers would have a hell of a time with your page probably.

» Posted by: Ryan at April 14, 2004 12:50 AM

I have a question, why would anyone want to use Lynx when great browsers like IE are out there?

Page designers are simply following the 80-20 (or more like 95-5) rule when designing, and I think they are doing a very good job at that. If 90 people use IE to view your site, and it looks and functions well, why worry about the 5 percent that complain they can't read it in something else... poll 100 internet users, how many do you think have even heard of Lynx?!?

I think we all lose a little common sense when it comes to the 'what' versus 'how'

but I have a cold, and could just be cranky this morning... :)

» Posted by: Travis at April 14, 2004 10:26 AM

Yeah, I'm not talking about IE market share. I'm talking about people abusing DHTML (HTML, DOM, JavaScript, CSS) to make web applications with a lot of crazy client behaviour.

You can do that in IE or even completely "standards compliant", doesn't matter.

» Posted by: Ryan at April 14, 2004 10:54 AM

Roy : This is a complete hack, but what about just making an image/imagemap of your header/footer and then adding that to each page? Your other option I guess, depending on your content would be Frames/Iframes.

» Posted by: peter at April 14, 2004 07:58 PM

Hi Peter:

Unfortunately, some of the content is dynamically generated (blogamp plugin for winamp) and making an imagemap is too tedious. As for frames, I learned a long time ago about those and I try and stay away from them. Frames are just a PITA, and I hate how they can sometimes make your page look ugly.

The *best* solution, as you and Ryan (and me) probably agree on, is server-side scripting. However, in my case, I don't have access to that on my hosting server.

One day I'll make my site super duper compliant :-P

» Posted by: roy at April 14, 2004 11:12 PM