Re: lynx-dev LYNX: hey, guys: Just what are we gonna *DO*?

[Martin McCormick]

        I am the technical/administrative contact for the
okstate.edu domain.  All the .edu domains are now administered by
Educause.edu and you can make changes and register new .edu
domains on their site.  That is if you meet the following specs
which I received after attempting to log in using lynx.  The SSL
links, by the way, worked perfectly under lynx and so did the
first page or so of their site.  Official death certificate
follows:


                         EDUCAUSE .edu Registration

                .edu Home Page Request a New Domain Manage Your Domain / Hosts
   Whois Lookup  .edu Policy         .edu FAQ      

                                 ATTENTION!

    For this site to work properly, you must have JavaScript and Cookies
                        enabled on your web browser.

      For information on how to turn cookies and javascript on in your
                   browser, consult your browser's help.

                 For general information about cookies, see
              http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/bulletins/i-034.shtml

   When you have the settings enabled, click Manage Your Domain/Hosts and
                               log in again.

               .edu Domain Home Page   o   EDUCAUSE Home Page
-----------------------------------------------------------

        I tried the  links  browser and so far, I haven't run
across any javascript sites that open up.  They just fail in
interesting ways.  One spews out a bunch of html and fails.  The
educause site indicated that a javascript command to open a
window had been received but that's about where it bit the dust.

        So far, all I have done is whine about it and look at
code and wonder what is the best thing to do to get web
functionality again.

        Things are getting pretty useless these days for us
UNIX-based text users.

        I think that lynx is absolutely great except for the
javascript problem.  Probably the best thing that can happen is
to find or build a proxy engine to digest all the incompatible
script.  The newer browsers such as netrik and links are way
behind lynx in diagnostic output and general features such as the
ability to save a page in a text file, etc.

        It seems wasteful to me to have to start from scratch
with all parts of the browser when most of it works fine.

        I guess one would need to run apache or some other web
server and then have the proxy engine able to take any url you
give to it and then it makes a http connection to that site and
turns what scripting code it can in to valid html and vise versa.

        Is that basically how a proxy works?

        I can see myself creating filters in which the junk goes
in and html comes out, but I still don't understand enough of the
simple mechanics of the problem to be much use yet.

        One possible idea might be to harness mozilla's
javascript engine if it can be made to operate outside of mozilla
and still be happy and produce html.  Then, the technology would
be more closely tied to something that many more people are using
which makes it more likely to stay around a while.

Martin McCormick WB5AGZ  Stillwater, OK 
OSU Center for Computing and Information Services Network Operations Group

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