Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 00:39:02 +1000 From: Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au> To: Nik Clayton <nik@freebsd.org> Cc: "Bruce A. Mah" <bmah@freebsd.org>, Randy Pratt <rpratt@ezwv.com>, freebsd-docs@freebsd.org, Doug Young <dougy@gargoyle.apana.org.au>, Murray Stokely <murray@osd.bsdi.com>, Jim Mock <jim@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Install Preview (was Re: (was) I'm leaving, now something like "anti official docs rant" :) ) Message-ID: <20010517003901.K26132@welearn.com.au> In-Reply-To: <20010516104048.G72224@catkin.nothing-going-on.org>; from nik@freebsd.org on Wed, May 16, 2001 at 10:40:48AM %2B0100 References: <01051513051703.00373@k6-2.weeble.com> <200105151727.f4FHRos64816@bmah-freebsd-0.cisco.com> <01051515135804.00373@k6-2.weeble.com> <20010516093113.G26123@welearn.com.au> <200105160129.f4G1TtF13540@bmah-freebsd-0.cisco.com> <20010516104048.G72224@catkin.nothing-going-on.org>
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On Wed, May 16, 2001 at 10:40:48AM +0100, Nik Clayton wrote:
> On Tue, May 15, 2001 at 06:29:54PM -0700, Bruce A. Mah wrote:
> > If memory serves me right, Sue Blake wrote:
> > > One of the things I've always loved about this doc is that people using
> > > text browsers like lynx get the "picture" too. Most people who use lynx
> > > do so because they have no alternative (low memory machine or broken X
> > > config or security restriction on the spare machine, or blind user) and
> > > it is often so easy to include support for them if only a little
> > > forethought is given to the task.
> >
> > Hmmm. I haven't played with this much, but if Randy uses the FreeBSD
> > DocProj infrastructure (based on DocBook based on SGML) there's some
> > facilities for doing graphics with alternate textual representations. I
> > think that the few documents that use images (design-44bsd is done of
> > them) will take advantage of this. I know they can generate ASCII-only
> > *.txt files correctly but I am not sure how this comes across in HTML.
>
> Typically, you wouldn't look at the HTML -- if you don't want the
> pictures, download the text version from the FTP site.
Well, not exactly. The hyperlinks make HTML superior to plain text,
and when you're hearing each word aloud at audible speed, or
downloading over a slow modem, hypertext is more important than ever.
They need small chunks and all the navigation aids they can get.
> It wouldn't be a great deal of effort to add the text only versions to
> the website as well.
Is there some reason why our finished HTML itself can't be made useful
to all, as HTML was intended?
> > > In that respect you've done very well, Randy. It would be a shame if
> > > those people lost their text "pictures" due to the demands of progress,
> > > but I guess that's gotta happen one day.
> >
> > I sure hope it doesn't. Keeping Web pages accessible to non-traditional
> > browsers is a Good Thing (TM).
>
> You can take it as read that I know this, and am in full agreement.
>
> That's one of the reasons why image support took so long to come in --
> it wasn't going to happen until the infrastructure supported text-only
> equivalents as well.
If I'm reading you correctly and this means downloading a *.txt file to
read from top to bottom instead of using a hypertext document set, well
yes, it is better than having no access. If that's the case maybe we
could consider the feasibility of adding links to the ASCII
illustrations within the normal HTML version, beside each picture,
something like the HTML4 "D" links (IIRC?) that are most often used to
describe audio/video in a separate small text file.
--
Regards,
-*Sue*-
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