Lynx as primary browser (was Re: [Lynx-dev] how to maximize client area???)

[Thorsten Glaser]

Stef Caunter dixit:

>On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 address@hidden wrote:
>
>> surely, anyone outside the poorest parts of the World today
>> has access to Firefox, Konqueror & other graphical browsers,
>> which display WWW pages as their authors intend them to be seen.

FUD.

* I design my web pages (e.g. http://mirbsd.mirsolutions.de/ ) to
  be optimised for Lynx and still look not too bad in Konqueror,
  and be XHTML/1.1 compliant.
* The only browser faster than Lynx is Dillo, which is just broken.
* Graphical browsers (especially Firefox(tm)) start _very_ slow and
  are _very_ ressource-hungry
* Graphical browsers imply a GUI, which is not always what I have
  (e.g. when I'm sitting on a vt420, or lending me a shell at a
  friend's laptop, ssh to home, lynx, have my bookmarks and cookies
  and all)
* Graphical browsers don't run in screen (I tend to kill my X by accident)

>> Lynx still has important uses, but in limited contexts.

No, Lynx is the primary browser for many people, including myself.
I'm using it for about 98% of all websites. Links+ (in X11, with
pics) for 1.8% of all websites and as image-viewer (Manga scans,
e.g. www.narutofan.com has some), and Firefox(tm) or Konqueror,
depending on which is there, for the remaining 0.2%.

>I think choice to have or not have indents is important; personally, I -dump
>out pages and have to :%s/^   // out the spaces in vi, and anything over 79
>cols wraps, (small gripe).

Funny enough, lynx -dump sometimes honours 80c and sometimes (eg.
when run in an xterm or from midnight commander, don't remember)
doesn't ;)

But post-processing in jupp (joe-editor.sf.net) is easy too.

>But I won't see lynx marginalized here. For many people it is our primary
>browser for HTTP; no one's personal usage has a priori primacy in a universal
>context. The lynx browser is as useful as you choose to make it.

And it's the only browser I know which supports
* textfields-need-activation
* navigation by numbering links and form fields
* partial displaying with a threshold of 1
* a source view starting where in the rendered form
  of the page you're in right now
* tables rendered in a way not trashing keyboard navigation
  when not using numbered
* spawning $EDITOR on a form field (COOL!)

I miss a few things, but I can live with it.
And not one of these features I miss does a
graphical browser give me.

bye,
//mirabile