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AnyBrowser

davidsaundersdavidsaunders Posts: 1,559
edited 2011-03-23 18:03 in General Discussion
In the process of setting up my main system for Windows (yuk) I noticed that I was NOT able to view the forums or most of the Parallax site using the Arachne Web Browser for DOS. I am a strong advocate of the any-browser campaign, which states that sites should support any web browser that supports the current standards with out any extensions. That is to say if a feature of a site uses some extension (such as Java, Java script, Active X, Flash, VBScript, etc...) that an alternate easily visible means should be provided to perform the same tasks.

And so I would like to suggest to Parallax implementing alternatives to the extinsions that are used in various portions of the Parallax site and forums. Done correctly the site would look and act exactly as it does now, even when viewed with a browser that does not support the superfluous extensions.

This is just a recommendation. Though beings as Parallax seems to cater to hobbyist programing and electronics, it would stand to reason that complying with Any-Browser would contribute to this market.

Comments

  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2011-03-23 01:17
    With JavaScript turned off, the forum looks no different than with it on, although the login mechanism probably operates differently. So I would have to conclude that Arachne's difficulty comes from another of its shortcomings. This is reinforced by the fact that it appears to support only a subset of HTML 4.0 and CSS 1.0, with substantial development having ceased ten years ago. Based on that, I imagine that the incremental benefit to Parallax from dumbing down its websites to accommodate such a browser would be virtually nil.

    -Phil
  • davidsaundersdavidsaunders Posts: 1,559
    edited 2011-03-23 09:34
    Phil:
    Why would you dumb down a site. Dillo has similar difficulties with the Parallax site/Forums. I have not seen anything on the Parallax site or forums that could not be done just as well, and appear and function identically, if redone in pure HTML 4.
  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2011-03-23 09:57
    Still, the effort required to make it compatible with yesterday's browser technology could never be justified by the minuscule benefit that results. It would be better to expend that effort on accommodating mobile browsers, which are rising in popularity, rather than those which barely make a blip on the popularity charts.

    -Phil
  • Dave HeinDave Hein Posts: 6,347
    edited 2011-03-23 13:11
    It would be a nightmare for a web developer to test against ancient versions (more than a few years old) of every web browser that's out there. I've never heard of Dillo before, and I doubt if many web developers test against it. Just looking at Dillo's main web page ( http://www.dillo.org ) would make me not want to use it. That has to be one of the poorest designed webpages I've seen in a while. Pastel colors are not a good choice for a web page.
  • davidsaundersdavidsaunders Posts: 1,559
    edited 2011-03-23 15:07
    Phill:
    How can you simultaneously disagree and agree? No one said any thing about 'Ancient versions', the point at hand is that the smaller web browsers with smaller development communities, are not well supported (this includes most of these new popular embed browsers). No one even came close to suggesting that any one test every browser, only that an effort is made to use only Non extended forms of the standards. If it is to much to ask that when a page and or section or script gets updated they take an extra 5% time to do so, than I would be extraordinarily surprised.
  • davidsaundersdavidsaunders Posts: 1,559
    edited 2011-03-23 15:34
    Dave Hein:
    You want to talk about a nightmare, I would be more about those sites that use a scripting DB language (like perl) to do there CGI and server side DB stuff, That is a nightmare to maintain. But thankfully most have learned to use host native binaries (simplifies things so much).
  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2011-03-23 16:38
    David,

    I use Perl for CGI whenever I can and think it's great. Um ... we seem to be from entirely different planets on these issues, so I'm going to bow out of this discussion for now. But please carry on if you think it's worthwhile.

    -Phil
  • davidsaundersdavidsaunders Posts: 1,559
    edited 2011-03-23 18:03
    Phil Pilgrim:
    Sorry I guess I went a bit overboard there. I just have seen so many good browser projects with a lot of potential die before they could even get off the ground because they could not yet deal with the extensions to the standard. And this issue is coming in strong again (like it did in the late 90s) as new operating systems are gaining momentum, like Haiku-OS witch already has 100s of thousands of users and it is still alpha quality, same for AROS, and a few others. Yes I know these are not widely used yet, in 1991 the same could have been said of M$-Windows, and Linux; most did not even know that either existed, and now they dominate the OS market.
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