Plea to Forum Maintainers for Text-Only Browser Awreness

[Ralph Grothe]

Hi All,

as being bogged down by download times since site refurbishment has really become a nuisance I would like to ask the webdevelopers of this site to make their CGIs, servlets, ASPs, or whatever functional to old bare text browsers like lynx.
Lynx is capable to handle cookies, so maintaining state shouldn't be an issue.
The only "drawback" is, it cannot execute JavaScript code, which the sent documents are cluttered with.
But I think there shouldn't be too much "porting" being involved to open up this site to pure ASCII browsers.
Let's face it, this site is about Unix administration and I would presume the audience isn't too much into fancy webdesign that involves DHTML, Flash, Pics, Frames and any kind of plug-ins, but rather accustomed to the power of sheer command line IPC, high efficiency and quick results.
If the webmasters could warm to using Apache instead of IIS I could imagine that posting would alleviate.
With techniques such as mod_perl or mod_jserv shifting of client-side to server-side executions should also be managable.

For those interested, you may want to download the sources of lynx from http://lynx.browser.org/ and at least browse through this forum's postings, where there is no need for client-side JavaScript.

[James R. Ferguson]

Ralph:

I would suggest that you submit this to the ITRC by cutting & pasting your post after clicking on the "contact hp" button on the left -> '"send us feedback" / forums' dialog.

This goes directly to the ITRC. This is the ITRC's stated, preferred contact mechanism. I know from constant use that they do read what comes in there and wiil very often acknowledge the receipt of your message.

BTW, I agree with you that we need textual presentations that work and fast response. I despise the new color scheme. I think all the fancy graphics, new pictures and empty space accomplish nothing and serve only as a visual distraction.

Warm regards!, Jim.

...JRF...

[wagley 2 10-18 · Accepted solution]

Thanks Jim for reminding Forum members to use the feedback mechanism on the Forums home page to submit any feedback, suggestions, or comments instead of posting in the Forums. We are listening to your concerns and are acting as quickly as possible to respond to the issues you mention.

Ralph, thank you for your suggestion. At this time we have all resources looking at the problems at hand and are considering all alternatives. Again, thank you for you suggestion and patience in this troubling matter.

Kind regards,

ITRC Forums Team
Hewlett-Packard Company

[Ralph Grothe]

James,

thanks for reminding me of the official path for suggestions and feedback to this forum's webmasters.
Also thank you for the supportive words.

Shayne,

thank you for taking notice of my complaint despite its inappropriate placement here.