lynx-dev Re: LYNX-DEV javascript useful at all? (was mensa)

[David Woolley]

>    I saw an app that did this, when it timed outon you, it dragged you to
>    a screen that said your session is now closed.  Sort of #4 on sqteroids.
>    Not critical though, since in case of Javascript failure, they had to
>    time you on the server side anyway.

There are a lot of people asking on the IIS/ASP groups how to force a
"logout" from a site; people are trying to treat web clients as connected
entities under control of the server and have difficulty with the idea
that users can abandon the site without warning.  I strongly suspect
that quite a few sites get into difficulty if you don't exit explicitly,
because a lot of people must have seen the hacks for timing out a site
but not understood their limitations.

That probably introduces another Javascript use:  locking users into a
site so that they can't independently navigate, and I am also sure there
must be sites which get into difficulties if people bypass the lock in
mechanism.

> use Netscape in X.  Some javascripts look cool... but many of them crash
> Netscape.

And there are lots of compatibility problems.  The last time I wanted to
search the SCO technical article database, I had to borrow a machine with
IE4, as the JScript broke on even IE3.  Also, you cannot use the GUI to
manage Netscape Fast Track from MSIE, because of Javascript/object model
incompatibilities (I'd use text file, but I'm outvoted (this has to be
done for machines going to customers, not just ones I control) and the
documentation is only in the help file for the GUI).