Re: LYNX-DEV Lynx HMTL capabilities

[David Woolley]

> 
> 2.  what HTML standard (HTML X) applies 
>     to the most widely held version of lynx.  (Lynx 2.5)?

Lynx 2.5 is essentially unuseable because of the number of frames pages
which fall back to an advertisement for MSIE or Navigator or are 
completely blank.

Lynx (2.7.2) recognizes HTML 4.0 (plus as pointed out elsewhere HTML 3.0
features which were ignored by the commercial browsers).

In some cases it handles it correctly where MSIE 4 is broken (and for
buttons, Navigator 4 doesn't work at all).

However:

- the rendering of tables is minimal (but note that neither MSIE or Navigator
  appear to use THEAD to create a non-scrollable region);

- the rendering of frames is as links (and the noframes text is displayed
as well);

- no scripting languagues are implemented;

- no applet/object languages are supported (I haven't checked, but it
  wouldn't surprise me if object works like IMG in appropriate contexts);

- images are rendered as alt text, with optional links to the image itself;

- styles are ignored.


The best approach if your primary aim is to supply information needs is
to design for HMTL 2 and add things like tables if they are essential to
the presentation of data (NB it is sometimes worth using nested tables to
ensure that the reading order and HTML order are the same, but most cases 
fall outside the information supply scenario).  Use style sheets for things
like colouring or baubles for bullet points - that way the people with the
latest fashion browsers will see the pretty effects but the deep structure
of the document will be unchanged (currently MSIE4 has the most complete/
least broken style sheet support; Navigator's is much less complete and
MSIE3's is rather broken - some things work only in external sheets and some
only in internal ones).

If your primary aim is selling to people who are motivated by fashions more
than content, you are probably best advised to estimate which of MSIE and
Navigator will win and design for its de facto behaviour, although I probably
wouldn't like the page.  You should still make sure that you have noframes
sections, text between <applet> and </applet>, alt= text, etc. to allow
navigation, and there should be ways of accessing all functions without
Java and scripts, or <buttons> (submit buttons are broken in MSIE4 and WORK
in Lynx!)