using frames

[Thomas Dowling]

> ...I advocate this approach also for 
> tables, image maps, and anything else that can't 
> be viewed in Lynx...

I'm not sure why I feel compelled to defend Lynx, but it seems to
suffer more than its fair share of misrepresentation on this list and
elsewhere.

As a general caveat, if you're using anything prior to Lynx 2.5, you're
using a browser as outdated as Netscape 1.0.  There's no excuse for
that; tell your sysadmins to get off their backsides and spend half an
hour on the upgrade.

If you are using Lynx 2.5 or 2.6, you have a browser that absolutely
can handle client-side image maps, and also handles server-side maps to
an extent, by linking to the URL that the 0,0 coordinate goes to.  Lynx
does not parse tables, but does employ a number of tricks that may
create the best approximation available in a typical 80x24 character
environment.  It even has a mechanism to navigate frames (you can argue
whether it's better than/worse than/as good as frames in Navigator or
Explorer).  Lynx 2.6FM also supports cookies.

About the only things it really *can't* handle are Java, Javascript,
CSS, and lazy Web authors who don't provide ALT= and VALUE= attributes
for their IMG and INPUT TYPE=IMAGE tags.



Thomas Dowling
Ohio Library and Information Network
tdowling at ohiolink.edu