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

I discovered that the elinks port can be configured with javascript support if it is configured in the ports tree, although it doesn't support images like links. I tried compiling it with javascript support on, but it crashed out halfway through compilation. Unfortunately I just don't have time to spend on it now, too much real work to do!

I did go and look at the boston globe site as suggested earlier, yes it works very well in links with images on. I'm not a web developer, so maybe this is a stupid question, but just to satisfy my curiosity, why is javascript (or anything executable in the web page) needed at all? Is it impossible to make a forum site like this using only html? Granted it might not have every fancy feature, but is html not good enough for this type of internet forum application? What kind of features would be missing if it didn't use javascript?
 
itsthosestonesman said:
maybe this is a stupid question, but just to satisfy my curiosity, why is javascript (or anything executable in the web page) needed at all?
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What a stupid question 😁
itsthosestonesman said:
Is it impossible to make a forum site like this using only html?
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No
itsthosestonesman said:
What kind of features would be missing if it didn't use javascript?
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JavaScript allows updating of the page without form submissions. You may have noticed you get an alert when someone posts to this thread while you are viewing it. JavaScript can also check for typos or missing information without having to submit it to the server first. JavaScript can handle a lot of things that can speed up the display of a page and data transfer as well as a lot of convenience features but, no, it is not needed to make a forum.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
JavaScript allows updating of the page without form submissions. You may have noticed you get an alert when someone posts to this thread while you are viewing it. JavaScript can also check for typos or missing information without having to submit it to the server first. JavaScript can handle a lot of things that can speed up the display of a page and data transfer as well as a lot of convenience features but, no, it is not needed to make a forum.
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And, of course, none of these features require you to require JavaScript support in the client. They can be provided where supported, see "progressive enhancement".
 
Hahaha. So the javascript bollocks isn't essential, and the site could be written entirely in html, at the cost of losing some of the fancy bells and whistles. Oh well, I don't expect anything will change. Maybe Zirias is onto something after all :)
 
itsthosestonesman said:
So the javascript bollocks isn't essential, and the site could be written entirely in html, at the cost of losing some of the fancy bells and whistles.
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Not even that, you can have all these "bells and whistles" anyways, for user-agents with complete Javascript support, if you follow the design principle of progressive enhancement. Problem is, someone would have to write a BB software following this principle ;)
 
Zirias said:
Problem is, someone would have to write a BB software following this principle.
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The problem starts more early already. Those someones got 32’’ 4k screens and develop for this only. Open the result on an iPhone 4 and you see the decoration only, not any single line of content, and you can’t even zoom out. 2-3 sensible JavaScript commands could do wonders here.

Foto.PNG
 
obsigna said:
The problem starts more early already. Those someones got 32’’ 4k screens and develop for this only. Open the result on an iPhone 4 and you see the decoration only, not any single line of content, and you can’t even zoom out. 2-3 sensible JavaScript commands could do wonders here.

View attachment 6594
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I couldn't help but make a comment here. It's a sign of the times that this forum can be accessed on a smartphone but not on the FreeBSD console!!! :'‑( Well, I ran up my slrn last night and found that the comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc is still active! Hooray!!! :p
 
Usenet still exists? Guess I'll need leafnode and tin again :eek:

(But where to feed from? My ISP, german t-online, retired their NNTP service many years ago ....)
 
Yes it's still there. I like the slrn newsreader (good threading support). Try NNTPSERVER=nntp.aioe.org. The aioe.org is a free news server, looks like it carries all the popular newsgroup. You can post too :)
 
itsthosestonesman said:
I couldn't help but make a comment here. It's a sign of the times that this forum can be accessed on a smartphone but not on the FreeBSD console!
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I prefer to see it the other way around. Smartphones are able to render standard web pages since the beginning. I bought my iPhone 4 in 2011, and ever since it was suitable to access any kind of normal web site - two finger pinching in and out was simply sufficient for every readability needs. This was until web developers started to mess-up everything with this bloody stupid Responsive Design. And of course this would mess-up any text based browsing as well, the Responsive Devs even won’t know, how to translate an 80 x 24 console size into a meaningful pixel size, I don’t know either.

For example, my non-responsive BLog looks as it should on my iPhone, and it should work on text based browsers as well. I didn’t test it though.

image.png
 
More and more I am actually moving away from websites and web browsing. The effort to use them is actually seeming less and less worth it. I used to always have a browser open, I have actually managed to wean myself away from that habit and now only open it when I need it. Due to the "weight" of web pages, I also rarely have more than one tab open. I prefer the use of my old Thinkpad over one or two news sites any day.

My post here: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/can-you-use-unix-without-x11-forward.69311/post-416208
Mentions a lynx only forums software. I have not made a massive amount of progress on it other than a bit of PHP and prototyping (I am a terrible web developer) but if any others are interested (possibly taking a lead) I would be very happy to help out with some of the code. It would be great to develop a lynx-targeted forums if we can convince the admins here to join XD.

To be honest, if we block all user agents apart from Lynx, I am pretty sure most spam and bots will also be avoided in 2019.
 
obsigna said:
The problem starts more early already. Those someones got 32’’ 4k screens and develop for this only. Open the result on an iPhone 4 and you see the decoration only, not any single line of content, and you can’t even zoom out. 2-3 sensible JavaScript commands could do wonders here.

View attachment 6594
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those popups annoyances "accept" is so annoying !

Man, accept, what for? Google, Android, Microsoft,... apple, fbi, nsa,.. are monitoring your life with smartphone, clouds,... .

This accept is kinda a joke.
 
kpedersen said:
More and more I am actually moving away from websites and web browsing. The effort to use them is actually seeming less and less worth it. I used to always have a browser open, I have actually managed to wean myself away from that habit and now only open it when I need it. Due to the "weight" of web pages, I also rarely have more than one tab open. I prefer the use of my old Thinkpad over one or two news sites any day.

My post here: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/can-you-use-unix-without-x11-forward.69311/post-416208
Mentions a lynx only forums software. I have not made a massive amount of progress on it other than a bit of PHP and prototyping (I am a terrible web developer) but if any others are interested (possibly taking a lead) I would be very happy to help out with some of the code. It would be great to develop a lynx-targeted forums if we can convince the admins here to join XD.

To be honest, if we block all user agents apart from Lynx, I am pretty sure most spam and bots will also be avoided in 2019.
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Just set up a FreeBSD server, with a powerful ssh connection !
sshfs rules, and you can use screen from another place, fast and at full speed.
Work on cli, use lkmmc or lfmmc if you need high speed work, efficient, clean and powered by FreeBSD only (or netbsd) !
 
obsigna said:
For example, my non-responsive BLog looks as it should on my iPhone, and it should work on text based browsers as well. I didn’t test it though.
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FYI, I can't make a connection to it with Lynx under DOS or Linux. :(
 
My honest opinion on making a whole new forum, accessed via the console, is.... to be pragmatic, I don't think its worth it. The vast majority of users will continue to use THIS forum, and you want to be able to search the knowledgebase of all current and historical posts. The popoulation of people who only want to work on console and not use a gui-based browser is likely to be a small fraction of the total population of users. I suspect we would find that it would split off into a small splinter forum with too few users to be viable. A more interesting question is, addressed to the maintainers of this forum, how difficult would it be to enable it to be accessed from html only, in a console browser like links that does not support javascript. If the answer is "it's a ton of work and a whole world of pain" then it's not worth pursuing. Of course if the answer is "we could modify the site to do that in a couple of days" then that might be worth following up. Perhaps allowing login over html with no javascript would be enough to produce something usable. It is already possible to read the forum in a text browser on the console, but not possible to log in and post, at least, not using links in the test I carried out at the start of this thread. There is of course still another option, which is to get a javascript-enabled console text browser working.
 
itsthosestonesman said:
My links browser also hangs trying to connect to obsigna.com.
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I started a conversation with OJ about the issue, and it was related to my server was open only on port 443. I opened it on port 80 as well, and now OJ was able to connect with Linux, but not with DOS. The server would answer a HTTP connection attempt with a 301 permanent redirection to the HTTPS site. So, old machines without a suitable TLS infrastructure are still out.
 
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It's working for me in the text browser now. I only wish I learnt German language in my school days... they only teach us english and french :'‑(
 
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