Hi people, Kenny's comments a couple of days ago about supporting existing web browsers which in turn support existing javascript libraries are important observations. There are at least two such products for the text console, elinks and edbrowse. Both projects could use a little help, and the time spent doing that would be time well spent. The Mozilla javascript libraries are now packaged for all major Linux distros, and can be compiled from sources made available by Mozilla if you would rather. Fedora just calls them "js", but Debian calls them either "smjs" (Sarge) or "mozjs" (Sid), not sure where Etch comes down on this. Both elinks and edbrowse rely on these libraries and offer a range of features using them. The difference between elinks and edbrowse is a fundamental philosophical one, as it is the difference between a two dimensional view of the screen and a one dimensional view of it. Let me explain a little. Two dimensional means rows and columns. The screen has a fixed size, usually 25 by 80 but possibly different, and it matters a lot where things are in that space. Thus screen readers are position-sensitive. This is an incredibly natural way to think of the screen, and unless you try another approach, it is not easy to see any merit in any other view. A natural consequence of this view is the use of a "point and click" approach, and (fanfare here) enter the mouse! Okay, the mouse leaves blind folks in the dust, but now enter key strokes that emulate the mouse. But try to persuade a sighted power user that keystrokes are as good as a mouse. It will not work. One dimensional means "before and after", or "above and below", and thinks of the screen as a substitute for an infinitely long roll of paper on which output can be printed, a line at a time. Am I the only one here who remembers teletype machines with rolls of paper? You type, it makes a line of print. The computer responds, another line or maybe several. You want to review what just happened, just glance back up the page to review what's there. It won't change while you're doing something else, it just gets farther back. The classic application using a one dimensional approach is the line editor, which comes in many forms, "ed" being the most popular. But on mainframes there was "qed", and "fred", and others, all very powerful, and all one dimensional. CP/M had one called "ed", but the Redmond folks called it "edlin" in DOS. Then at one point it went two dimensional and was called "edit", and soon thereafter DOS went not only two dimensional but graphical as well, and Redmond called it Windows. The one dimensional approach is alive and well, it remains powerful and flexible, is keeping abreast of the best two dimensional text mode browsers, and is worthy of support. Granted, the bandwagon is going in the other direction, but not everyone is jumping aboard. I'm not convinced we need brand new tools, especially if they only try to do the same old thing that other tools do. We need to sharpen the tools we already have, which are not half bad already. Chuck -- The Moon is Waning Gibbous (83% of Full) But you can get a few downloads from http://www.mhcable.com/~chuckh
