Can we have a 'basic html' interface to use with text mode browsers?

[blackbird9]

I like using the www/links browser from ports in graphics mode (and also elinks, w3m, lynx, they're similar). I tried logging in to this forum using links today, but needless to say it detected javascript not enabled in the browser and refused to let me log in. Some other sites have a 'basic html' mode that allows people to use the site from html only, for example, slashdot.org still offers the 'basic html' mode. Is there any chance that could be provided by this forum at some time? Great site BTW. Cheers

 

[drhowarddrfine]

Such things are hard to find, nowadays, as is the case with general purpose software such as this forum. If you want to see an excellent example of proper markup that's usable with the browsers you mention, look at https://bostonglobe.com/ It's similar to sites my company would create. (Ours were still better, though)

 

[Spartrekus]

I like using the www/links browser from ports in graphics mode (and also elinks, w3m, lynx, they're similar). I tried logging in to this forum using links today, but needless to say it detected javascript not enabled in the browser and refused to let me log in. Some other sites have a 'basic html' mode that allows people to use the site from html only, for example, slashdot.org still offers the 'basic html' mode. Is there any chance that could be provided by this forum at some time? Great site BTW. Cheers

Java is today common, and it *can* be used.

Besides, FreeBSD Forum is not much supporting CLI or text console mode oriented.
There is even a category Xorg in the forum. FreeBSD is dedicated to large audience, which makes it so as you describe.

Maybe people should develop consolebsd and create a forum ?

 

[zirias@]

Java is today common, and it *can* be used.

Don't mix up Java and Javascript, they have nearly nothing in common.

Besides, FreeBSD Forum is not much supporting CLI or text console mode oriented.
There is even a category Xorg in the forum. FreeBSD is dedicated to large audience, which makes it so as you describe.

FreeBSD supporting systems with X has nothing to do with the proper design of a web service/application.

Maybe people should develop consolebsd and create a forum ?

Maybe someone should create a sane BB system. "Sane" would mean that it

• has a sane resource structure, possible resources could be "user", "thread", "posting" ...
• handles these resources in a RESTful way
• provides content negotiation to determine what representation of the resource the client likes
• for HTML representation, uses basic semantic markup
• uses CSS and Javascript in a "progressive enhancement" style

Unfortunately, a lot of web software nowadays is written in a pretty brain-dead way, with single-page-applications being the ultimate eclipse of sanity ...

 

[Spartrekus]

Don't mix up Java and Javascript, they have nearly nothing in common.

FreeBSD supporting systems with X has nothing to do with the proper design of a web service/application.

Maybe someone should create a sane BB system. "Sane" would mean that it

• has a sane resource structure, possible resources could be "user", "thread", "posting" ...
• handles these resources in a RESTful way
• provides content negotiation to determine what representation of the resource the client likes
• for HTML representation, uses basic sematic markup
• uses CSS and Javascript in a "progressive enhancement" style

Unfortunately, a lot of web software nowadays is written in a pretty brain-dead way, with single-page-applications being the ultimate eclipse of sanity ...

thanks

it is not so much sane to use PHP, CSS or Java*.

html 3 would be maybe ok.

 

[zirias@]

it is not so much sane to use PHP, CSS or Java*.

This looks just confused...

html 3 or 4 would be better.

... are you comparing a representation format (markup language) with programming languages etc, wildly mixing server- and client-side?

Leaving that aside, there's NO point in using older versions of HTML.

If you didn't get what I meant, read up some context -- "REST" and "progressive enhancement" are nice google keywords.

 

[Spartrekus]

thank you, I see better.

Look here, this is why, I keep saying to use simple html 3.x or 4.x at max.
woow technologies ...
=> fairly unreadable.

 

[drhowarddrfine]

I keep saying to use simple html 3.x or 4.x at max.

Large swaths of HTML 3 and also HTML4 are obsolete.

 

[kpedersen]

Large swaths of HTML 3 and also HTML4 are obsolete.

They say "obsolete", I say "feature complete"

In the case of the web, too many broths spoils the cook.

 

[Spartrekus]

They say "obsolete", I say "feature complete"

In the case of the web, too many broths spoils the cook.

"feature complete" is an excellent description.

 

[drhowarddrfine]

Obsolete Features
The problem with using obsolete elements and properties is that you are given notice that these things can be removed at any time without notice (because this is a notice that they will eventually be removed).

 

[Spartrekus]

Obsolete Features
The problem with using obsolete elements and properties is that you are given notice that these things can be removed at any time without notice (because this is a notice that they will eventually be removed).

There are actually not much possibilities to fix the web.
It would be likely interesting to create a new language for web, rather than using it for fast webpage displaying and reading.

 

[kpedersen]

because this is a notice that they will eventually be removed.

I agree, though every modern feature today will be removed eventually. In the world of web I have even seen obsolete features sticking around longer than more recent ones (blocking ajax, early websocket standards). With the rise of web assembly, I can even see the fixed html/css/javascript parsers and interpreters being deprecated one day and you as a developer need to provide your own WASM library with their implementation (thats great, we can provide a html4 one! Simpler to write and maintain ).

In the grand scheme of things, saying something is deprecated doesn't really mean much, it is up to the browser developers to remove it and in the name of "being the most compatible", they rarely do (possibly why browsers are getting so bloated).

The best thing about a deprecated feature is that it probably won't change ever again. No-one is going to "improve" an already deprecated feature. It will be the most stable thing in the world (until its ultimate removal)

This is really just an observation, I say this as an absolute web amateur and for professional production grade sites I obviously wouldn't recommend doing anything non-standard.

 

[drhowarddrfine]

Note that my link points to obsolete features, not deprecated. This list is the step beyond deprecated.

 

[drhowarddrfine]

saying something is deprecated doesn't really mean much, it is up to the browser developers to remove it

Browser vendors remove things all the time. Chrome even lists them on their web site and in the developer tools about once a month. Not usually HTML elements, though, in the interest of not breaking web sites but it will eventually happen.

 

[Spartrekus]

Simpler to write and maintain

Today, unfortunately, certainly not, the most important is that they need lot of maintenance and to make the web as inefficient as possible.
It is important to make the economy, feeling like actively working, but it is pretending.
"Good feeling of being busy"

Increasing the number of necessary programmers for making softwares or website ; it employs consequently more.

https://www.marketscreener.com/stock-exchange/shares/North-America-8/

Sector
 MICROSOFT CORPORATION USD  131.4  918 312 29.37% Software - NEC
 AMAZON.COM USD  1803.71  833 365 20.09% Internet & Mail Order Department Stores
 APPLE USD  190.15  797 366 20.55% Phones & Smart Phones
 ALPHABET USD  1068.37  720 265 2.30% Search Engines
 BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC. USD  309265  488 426 1.07% Multiline Insurance & Brokers - NEC
 FACEBOOK USD  173.35  468 564 32.24% Social Media & Networking
 ALIBABA GROUP HOLDING USD 

It is like an economy with mostly services.

It is also important that Microsoft does not support the hardware after few years, so that customers have to purchase new notebook or pc.
Efficiently made, the computer industry will take largest place in the economy. Then, it is important to reduce other sectors, including reducing cost of education, research, health care,...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Zhum539cyE

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wykaDgXoajc

 

[Deleted member 9563]

I'm currently working from a limited resource computer. (My main one is broken - my fault.) So with my usual style it's a bit overloaded and when I hit the big sites, like BBC for example, there is a moment where it shows the page without pictures and styling. What a relief! For just a second everything is sensible and readable, almost as if someone wanted to communicate with me. But then everything loads and I wonder what their intent is. Certainly it's nothing that's intended to benefit me.

 

[Spartrekus]

I'm currently working from a limited resource computer. (My main one is broken - my fault.) So with my usual style it's a bit overloaded and when I hit the big sites, like BBC for example, there is a moment where it shows the page without pictures and styling. What a relief! For just a second everything is sensible and readable, almost as if someone wanted to communicate with me. But then everything loads and I wonder what their intent is. Certainly it's nothing that's intended to benefit me.

I usually read BBC with

links -g

which is the only way mostly to have it and to read the information, without ads,... divs.

 

[blackbird9]

I was thinking of the slashdot 'classic mode', which doesn't use javascript and was retained by slashdot (after a huge outcry from the community) when they re-engineered the site using modern web tech a few years ago. But I guess the amount of work needed to provide something like that here is just plain prohibitive, so fair enough, it's unlikely to happen.

To try to find a halfway house I looked into which text mode browsers support javascript, and found some people have successfully used elinks with spidermonkey on linux. Sadly the freebsd spidermonkey port seems to have lapsed. I downloaded the spidermonkey code from mozilla yesterday and tried to build it but got the usual millions of errors, and I don't have the spare bandwidth to debug it. I also found something called edbrowser [URL]http://edbrowse.org/[/URL] which looks quite intriguing, they say it has an embedded javascript engine, I haven't had time to try it out yet. I do really like the links browser (the original one from twibright.com) running with graphics enabled and I use that sometimes on linux boxes in a framebuffer console, its very useful when you're in the test cell and don't have a laptop with you; but of course that doesn't support javascript. Anyway I'll keep looking, I'll try to get round to trying edbrowser some time.

 

[zirias@]

I was thinking of the slashdot 'classic mode', which doesn't use javascript and was retained by slashdot (after a huge outcry from the community) when they re-engineered the site using modern web tech a few years ago. But I guess the amount of work needed to provide something like that here is just plain prohibitive, so fair enough, it's unlikely to happen.

Again, I'd like to emphasize, that IMHO, introducing "modes" is doing it wrong. I know it doesn't help your case here -- but maybe, some day, someone comes up with a web forum software doing it right -- well, I can dream

 

[Spartrekus]

I was thinking of the slashdot 'classic mode', which doesn't use javascript and was retained by slashdot (after a huge outcry from the community) when they re-engineered the site using modern web tech a few years ago. But I guess the amount of work needed to provide something like that here is just plain prohibitive, so fair enough, it's unlikely to happen.

To try to find a halfway house I looked into which text mode browsers support javascript, and found some people have successfully used elinks with spidermonkey on linux. Sadly the freebsd spidermonkey port seems to have lapsed. I downloaded the spidermonkey code from mozilla yesterday and tried to build it but got the usual millions of errors, and I don't have the spare bandwidth to debug it. I also found something called edbrowser [URL]http://edbrowse.org/[/URL] which looks quite intriguing, they say it has an embedded javascript engine, I haven't had time to try it out yet. I do really like the links browser (the original one from twibright.com) running with graphics enabled and I use that sometimes on linux boxes in a framebuffer console, its very useful when you're in the test cell and don't have a laptop with you; but of course that doesn't support javascript. Anyway I'll keep looking, I'll try to get round to trying edbrowser some time.

How can you use Javascript in terminal for w3m?

I found the text browser w3m which is the best so far in my opinion. However, it is main problem is Javascript. I cannot see comments at all in Stackoverflow when I use it. I am not sure what is ...

stackoverflow.com

Building eLinks Text-based Web Browser with (Some Sort of) JavaScript Support - CNX Software

Yesterday, I've spend some time trying to find a text-based web browser with support for JavaScript. Although I doubt many people would need that, I'll

www.cnx-software.com

 

[blackbird9]

Again, I'd like to emphasize, that IMHO, introducing "modes" is doing it wrong. I know it doesn't help your case here -- but maybe, some day, someone comes up with a web forum software doing it right -- well, I can dream

I think "mode" may be a misnomer here, it's just what slashdot call it What they really mean is their original website software, which didn't use any javascript but used straight html, the design of which dated right back to the mid-90s when it started as a discussion group. Some years ago they got bought out by another company, who decided in their wistom to re-engineer the site using modern web technology, the full works. Initially they wanted to completely drop the existing system and replace it wholesale, which led to a huge outcry from the sites users, whereupon the new owners relented and allowed a version of the old system to still be used, and this is what they call "classic mode". This probably isn't what you're thinking of when the word "mode" is used

 

[zirias@]

This probably isn't what you're thinking of when the word "mode" is used

This is exactly what I was thinking. See my first post in this thread for my opinion how you're doing a web application "the right way" (which automatically leads to it being fully usable even in "lynx" while still having any "bells and whistles" you might want).

 

[blackbird9]

How can you use Javascript in terminal for w3m?

I found the text browser w3m which is the best so far in my opinion. However, it is main problem is Javascript. I cannot see comments at all in Stackoverflow when I use it. I am not sure what is ...

stackoverflow.com

Building eLinks Text-based Web Browser with (Some Sort of) JavaScript Support - CNX Software

Yesterday, I've spend some time trying to find a text-based web browser with support for JavaScript. Although I doubt many people would need that, I'll

www.cnx-software.com

I did try elinks, sadly it's designed to use mozilla spidermonkey for the javascript interpreter, and the FreeBSD port of spidermonkey has been deleted https://www.freshports.org/lang/spidermonkey. However looking through freshports I spotted something called spidermonkey52 https://www.freshports.org/lang/spidermonkey52/ so maybe I can get elinks to work with that. I'm not very familiar with w3m, I always thought links was superior, but again thanks for the suggestions. i'll look into it when I get some time. Finding time is always the problem hahaha

 

[blackbird9]

This is exactly what I was thinking. See my first post in this thread for my opinion how you're doing a web application "the right way" (which automatically leads to it being fully usable even in "lynx" while still having any "bells and whistles" you might want).

Hahaha I should have gone back and read what you wrote