RULE must allow web surfing both in character and graphic
mode.
At least when in graphic mode, even modern web sites with
frames, javascript and such must be supported, as long as they
are compliant with real web standards, and don't use any
proprietary "extension". To educate new users, we should add
in the final documentation something explaining that if they
can't browse a non compliant site, it's not their fault, but
the webmaster's. In other words, that when a web site starts
pretending to be viewed only with one browser, or starts
dumping unneeded Flash and other trash-TV kind of things on
users, they shouldn't feel inferior, just never come back, and
let the webmaster know about it.
Following are some features that should be present in all
browsers we offer, as well as some problems that should be
dealt with in some standard way.
Our usual package selection criteria apply: no to browsers
that may be light in and by themselves, but force installation
of many megs of libraries, and/or start and leave around
handful of auxiliary processes
A browser must browse: email, news, etc... belong to
external applications. Obviously, all selected browsers should
be preconfigured to call such applications automagically, and
mail/news clients should call the chosen browser in the same
way when a URL is selected.
Full useability without the mouse: not really mandatory,
but almost so.
as said above, modern web sites that do follow web
standards should be useable. In this context, we should repeat
on each candidate the same tests discussed in a recent article
on Linux Journal's web site (I'll post the URL asap)
An extremely powerful feature to look for is the
capability to select any hyperlink, and launch a user-defined
script with the underlying URL as its first argument. This
allows us to add all the capabilities of the more bloated
browsers with a handful of shell scripts, each specialized for
one task, for example:
the default one will be the one in the list below which fits
the guidelines and takes less RAM when compiled and configured
for color, SSL, cookies table and frame support if present:
it could be perfect if somebody managed to extract from the
Gnome/Mozilla mess all and only the code it actually needs, so
that you can compile and install a small static binary without
several hundred megs of dependencies on disk
aka the browser whose developers disappeared. Rumor has it
that it was a port of konq-e back to the x386 platform, i.e,
konqueror on a desktop without the KDE elephant coming along.
Very interesting, if only one could find its developers, any
documentation, or up to date code. Luckily James, on the RULE
list, is investigating this subject.
Copyright 2000/2002 Marco Fioretti, linuxdesk at inwind dot it. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2002 The RULE project. All Rights Reserved.
Generated on 2002/06/10 5:22:4 UTC
