Re: LYNX-DEV You'll love "progress"...

[David Woolley]

> 2: If java, how does one download to one's own computer
>    the java program so as to run it on one's own appletviewer

This would break the Java security model.

> 4: Is there any way a java-app CAN be "text only", or provide
>    the text-only alternative that one can have in HTML?
>    (For us to ask sites to use).

A Java app can be text only, but I don't think an applet can be.

In any case, if the site is not prepared to provide body content for
the applet element, it is unlikely that they are going spend orders of
magnitude more money writing alternative code in their applet.

Something the Lynx community has to understand is that the people with
the spending power on these broken site have no commitment to doing things
"right", only to attracting the largest number of big spending prospects
to their site.  (Vanity site still want to be thought fashionable, not 
correct.)  As such it is always going to be a losing battle trying to
track what these sites do.  In my view, Lynx should not try.

(In the commercial world, it is not uncommon to develop products for
purely marketing reasons, even though an existing product is perfectly
adequate for the job.  E.g. there can be pressure to create Windows
applications to stop competitors knocking you on the grounds that not all
(i.e. some rarely used functions) are not Windows; at least in the UK,
competitors don't point out that your system doesn't work for blind users,
and probably rarely point out that you need the very latest PC to run it,
so these issues are not design considerations.)

If you want to convince people to do things right you need to demonstrate
to them that:

- you have money to spend;

- you have alternatives for spending it with companines which do run 
  Lynx friendly site (name them);

- the lost profits from you and similar users will exceed the cost of
  training people to do things properly, and those lost from being later
  to market because of longer development times.

You can try quoting legislation, but chances are it is cheaper to work
around the legislation than to honour the spirt, or even just to plead
ignorance.  (Fire regulations are regularly ignored in the UK; I've
even seen public libraries with illegally jammed open doors.)

>