Support for browsers w/o JavaScript or JS disabled [DONE]

windmage · Post by **windmage** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 9:05 pm

exp, the problem is not disabling js, but the whole issue of support for it. js is inherently tied to a particular browsing idiom, which clashes with the intended purpose of the web. specifically, it's intended for someone accessing the page with a visual, gui-based browser and a mouse. many of the js functions do not make sense for a browser that has no concept of multiple windows, or no concept of a mouse. this applies not only to text-based browsers, but also to text-to-speech and possibly braile browsers for the blind and various mobile devices with alternative interfaces. depending on js is just bad design.

if you really insist on making anidb inaccessible, i can make a proxy that fixes all the pages to work without js, but that's a huge pain. it would be so much easier to just make a few lines of changes to the html so as to support non-js browsers.. and you could still keep the "js-enhanced" behavior for the people who do use js browsers.

Post by **PetriW** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 5:47 am

I fail to see how any of those arguments would be significant for anidb, a site dedicated to moving media. And supporting lynx is hardly something that should be a design goal...

But anidb looks and works just fine in opera text browser mode.

windmage · Post by **windmage** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 7:10 am

Opera does not have a 'text browser' mode, unless you mean suppressing image loading. Anyway I don't see how any one of the points I raised is irrelevant because of the subject matter of AniDB. Surely one could want to use elinks or another nice browser (or god forbid that lynx shit..). There's no reason someone wouldn't want to access AniDB from a mobile/handheld device.. And finally just because someone can't see doesn't mean they won't necessarily be interested in learning about anime, or even listening to it or something.. Also some people have limited visual ability but can't make out small letters even with glasses.. or maybe they're illiterate?

Anyway I see how exp has a reason to attack my suggestions because it's work (albeit a very small amount) for him to add non-JS support. But it's really annoying me how all sorts of people who have no interest one way or the other keep attacking my request for decent accessibility to the site...

Post by **PetriW** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 2:17 pm

I mean this mode: (Opera users hit Ctrl+F11 if the image is too large!)

Addresses most of the stuff you mention, and works on Windows, Mac, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris and even some mobile phones!

I can understand wanting accessibility features... but I find this request unreasonable as I don't think it should be a concern for AniDB.
Notice also that Opera has navigation for disabled and Mozilla will have soon too I think.

windmage · Post by **windmage** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 5:53 pm

Their idea of "navigation for the disabled" is nonsense. It's trying to force the wrong solution onto a problem, due to the fact that many websites are misdesigned. It's much better for the html to properly represent the markup, relations, and links, and let the user agent decide on a way to interpret it and make it accessible to the user's needs or wishes.

Post by **PetriW** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 5:59 pm

That's just one mode, there are several others. ><

Post by **exp** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 2:43 pm

how do you enable text mode in opera?

BYe!
EXP

Post by **PetriW** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 5:04 pm

Right click button toolbar -> customize... -> Buttons tab -> Browser view node -> Drag the "Author mode" button to your button bar -> click it and select "Emulate text browser".

The same option may also available on the show images button. It's the button up in the top right corner in the screenshot. (Although look depends on your theme.)

Website · Post by **Rar** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 6:08 pm

Personally I have *no* sympathy for windmage at all, he *chooses* to use an OS that doesn't even support unicode, but actually can view anidb with a JS enabled browser (in fact he has to - his other one fucks up creqs).

However... there are some spectacularly bad bits of interface that currently use JS and popups where they really don't need to, and if we ever get our redesign, making quite a lot of things at least optional on the JS front would be no bad thing.

Rar

windmage · Post by **windmage** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 10:03 pm

Just an explanation to counter what Rar said. Yes, I can use Mozilla if I want to. This requires: starting X, waiting for mozilla to load, enterring my AniDB login/pass (since the "remember" feature does not work if you put it in multiple browsers..?), ... If I wanted to do it while using one of my laptops this is impossible, since it doesn't exactly have enough memory to even load mozilla. On my other computers it's just an inconvenience. But the main reasons I normally use ELinks for browsing are:

- It's a terminal-mode app that runs in my screen session, so I can keep my session open and use it wherever I login from. I usually login from several different locations every day.
- Sites load MUCH FASTER without all the unnecessary graphics, and if I want/need to look at specific pictures I can still have the browser launch an external imageviewer when i press enter on the image.

Finally, the claim that I choose to use "an OS that doesn't even support unicode" is misleading. The only part of linux that does not support unicode is the console, and even that does partially. It's just limited to 512 glyphs and does not support wide or combining characters. My current system is based off of 5+ year old software that is not built with good utf8 support, and is setup to run with minimal bloat and memory requirements. I'm sorry for digressing into a rant, but with every subsequent release much of this software (especially glibc and X) gets more and more bloated like windows crap. This makes it infeasible to just "upgrade"; instead I am in the slow process of trying to build a good utf8-only environment without bloat. Even once I do that however, I will still prefer to use a text-based browser because it's more convenient and more to my liking, as described at the beginning of this message..

egg · Post by **egg** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 3:21 am

While I do feel that AniDB should try to support as many environments as possible, it is reasonable to assume that most people using the DB are tracking fansubs, and probably have a graphical interface and decent bandwidth. If you are working with systems that are that cannot support these interfaces efficiently (yes, there is a lot of bloat, but GHz and GB compensate), then your situation is rare. The fact that the system works at all is a credit to exp.

BTW, if you use the Hint, if there is something there that doesn't work, I am willing to look at it, but no guarantees.

windmage · Post by **windmage** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 3:43 am

Hint works great for me.. thanks for the offer though! Really, all I want is a way to make the popup() stuff work without js, i.e. target="_new" or whatever. Or even opening in the same window would be fine. It's just annoying not to be able to use lots of the features (categories, group comments, ...) without loading a whole other browser. And rather than spend the time to load it, I'm just inclined not to use these features (which means also not contributing to them -- yes, if I could use them easily, I'd add categories and group comments a lot more!).

Post by **exp** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 12:45 pm

well, the problem with the popup() part is that I haven't found a nice solution to support non-js browsers too so far.
it's a bit tricky and tends to end in some ugly js code which writes into the page.

BYe!
EXP

hhaamu · Post by **hhaamu** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 2:51 pm

exp wrote:well, the problem with the popup() part is that I haven't found a nice solution to support non-js browsers too so far.

<a href="animedb.pl?show=pop&pop=notify" onclick="javascript:window.open('animedb.pl?show=pop&pop=notify','Notification311','toolbar=0,location=0,directories=0,status=0,menubar=0,scrollbars=1,resizable=1,width=200,height=150');" class="nav">3 notify(s)</a>

It's somewhat ugly, but most browsers should get that correct. Anyway, <a href="#"> needs to die.

Post by **fahrenheit** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 12:32 pm

hmm, exp your html is pumped up from perl right?
if so i guess you could check if js is enabled for a certain user and if not rewrite a page without the js bits, simply when there is no js you open a popup with a _blank target, etc.
if it's not pumped up from perl, you have to staticly rewrite the html.. and that would be a pain..