Barnes and Noble snubs Lynx users

[Thomas Dowling]

>There are some things webmasters could do to expand web access
>for Lynx users.  Completing ALT="" in IMG SRC statements would
>be a nice start.  Refraining from imagemaps would also help.
>I believe the latest version of Lynx handles a form of an imagemap, but
>the standard imagemap continues to block Lynx users from accessing
>parts of a web site.  Also, auto-redirecting links and mailto: links
>(for users Lynx w/o e-mail access) prevent access in their own ways.
>

I remain convinced that Lynx is the most adept HTML viewer commonly
available, and any claim that a site's HTML isn't Lynx-compatible is
another way to say their authors are lazy--witness this from Barnes and
Noble: "  [INLINE] [INLINE] [INLINE]
".  Lynx clearly isn't--and isn't intended to be--a product that supports
the adjunct bells and whistles like JavaScript, Java, and plug-ins, but if
it's well-written HTML, Lynx does it.  I'm also convinced that Netscape and
Microsoft are designing their browsers to the needs of authors (and
advertisers), while Lynx is one of the few remaining browsers thinking in
terms of reader requirements.

Lynx supports client-side image maps outright; the map becomes a link to a
menu, which is composed of the sections of the map; the menu gets its text
from the required ALT attributes in the map'
s AREA elements.

Lynx supports server-side image maps by following the link on the 0,0
coordinate.  This is one of the few design choices I have disagreed with;
earlier versions followed the default URL.

When a document uses a <META HTTP-EQUIV...> tag to redirect you, Lynx does
what I consider the reader-friendly thing; it shows you the document you
actually requested, with a link to the document the author want to redirect
you to.

[If sending e-mail in an anonymous environment is a problem, users should
be running Lynx with the appropriate restrictions; QED.  Getting something
comparable to the "lynx -restrictions" options under Netscape is a
recurring theme on this list.]

Lynx is not without its problems.  It still needs to handle tables more
intelligently, and it would greatly benefit from displaying the top of a
long document without waiting to receive the complete file.  But it has a
lot of features I wish the Big Two would study, rather than trying to get
me hot and bothered about Push.

BTW, there's a nice Win32 port of Lynx at <URL:http://www.fdisk.com/doslynx/
lynxport.htm> (funny, though...it can't find /usr/bin/sendmail); total
size, installed: 1.6MB.  There's also a Mac beta; see <URL:http://www.flora.
org/lynx-dev/html/month0597/msg00902.html>.  

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