Re: LYNX-DEV lynx on www.microsoft.com

[Philip Webb]

970504 Drazen Kacar wrote: 
> Laura Eaves wrote:
> > If I'm reading you right, you have an invisible link
> > to the graphics-intensive page
> > and the "Here be ASCII text" link to the text-only page:
> >   <a href="harry_graphics.html"><img src="whatever.gif" alt=""></a>
> >   <A HREF="textish.html"><IMG SRC="t.gif" ALT="Here be ASCII graphics"></A>
> Exactly.
> > If the "invisible" link were displayed as [LINK],
> > then the user would at least have the option of downloading or viewing
> > the graphics page some other way.  (Instead of making it invisible,
> > you could say alt="graphics-intensive page".)
> Yes, but the graphic page in question is really not important. For example,
> image in the first example says "All about Dave" and the link leads to
> the page with one really big, bandwidth wasting GIF with my natal chart.
> That's a joke, more or less. Pages with usable content have text alternative.
> I prefer more control because I know what I'm doing, which, again, is not
> the case with Joe. H. Author. So, do as you please.

i'ld say your "All about Dave" page is a waste of most people's time:
why put it there?  anyway, it's certainly a bit eccentric (brief smile).

surely Laura has had a good basic point thro' all this discussion:
Lynx should treat  ALT=""  just the same way it treats a missing  ALT ,
by reporting  [LINK] , with a number if links-are-numbered.
there's no reason to expect authors to make some use of the distinction
between the two cases to warn readers that some links are to silly graphics,
rather than useful visual information (even if the official rules say so).

if you encounter a page full of nuisance  [LINK]s , you can always exit Lynx
& change  lynx.cfg  to suppress the display of  [LINK]  during that visit.
i haven't checked, but i believe it's not an  o  option: maybe it should be.

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