Re: [Lynx-dev] whichversion of lynx?

[Ian Collier]

On Thu, Jun 05, 2014 at 09:05:55PM -0400, Karen Lewellen wrote:
> I use lynx daily, and actually have a phone meeting with td bank
> staff who are wanting   the best lynx edition, with this functional
> :SUBMIT function in order to fix the access issues with the script
> buttons.
> I am guessing the new release is not coming tomorrow smiles.

The search button on www.tdbank.com is never going to work with Lynx as
it stands.  You found a bug in Lynx: namely, that it allows you to type
:SUBMIT on a link that's not in a form and then crashes when it tries
to look up the form action (because there is no form).  The proposed
fix - which I presume TD will incorporate into any future version of
Lynx that he releases - is merely to stop Lynx from doing that.  That is,
the fixed version will do nothing when you type :SUBMIT on a link that's
not in a form.

The button in question on the web site calls a JavaScript function that
basically says "look up the text in the input box, check whether it
still contains our placeholder text, then send the text to the following
URL: www.tdbank.com/CustomerService/search-results.aspx?q=TEXT
But since the URL is hidden inside a JavaScript function, there's
nothing Lynx can do to guess what it should do when you try to submit
your query.

It beats me why web designers feel the need to use JavaScript for
basic functionality such as this.  It's completely broken as far
as accessibility is concerned.  HTML gives you the tools to do this,
so why not use them?

(I also think web designers should stop putting "please enter some text"
in their input fields, but that's another matter.)

imc