Re: LYNX-DEV Lynx Broswer...

[David Woolley]

> for synthesizers and braille.  Whatever problems the Big Two
> have with their initial implementations, they will eventually
> be corrected, and users with synthesizers or braille will be
> able to set up appropriate override style sheets, further
> increasing the usefulness of GUIs.  It's a very exciting

I think the problem that will remain is that the authors won't be 
re-engineered; most commercial site authors will be working in 
WYSIWYG mode, and therefore will still design pages that look right
on their authoring tool but are structurally a mess.

Also commercial authors work on a cost benefit basis.  This means that
only the most major of companies will put money into authoring for
minorities.  (Doing so doesn't cost much if you author structurally, but
tends to mean that the WYSIWYG author has to really learn the internal
structure, negating the WYSIWYG approach, or has to fill in lots of
detailed dialogue boxes, such as those already not filled in for ALT=.)
(Many company sites may be developed by enthusiasts without any proper
budget, even for the support of the GUI majority.)

Finally there is the backward compatibility issue.  Things like frames
make authors want to target the latest browsers, but given the choice of
using plain bullets to allow proper lists with MSIE 3- and Netscape 4-, 
most authors will simply put an image at the start of a paragraph, or even
use a table, rather than lose their older GUI browser users, as the old
method produces the same visual effect for all GUI users.

Until thought transfer technology, with what you need (as against what
you want) operation becomes generally available, I think most sites will
fail to have any deep structure.

Any real move will be the result of changes in authoring tools, not directly
from changes in HTML, and even there tools which nag users into including
ALT text etc., are likely to be rejected by the market in favour of less
fussy ones.