Links the chain

[Kenny Hitt]

Hi.  Links (the chain) has a confusing history.  The links2.1 program
most people mean when they say "links" is a program based on another
program called links.  the origional links was written by a Check
physicist for his personal use.  I believe the latest version is still
at 0.99.  The links 2.1 program most people use was based on the
origional links and branched off at links 0.97.  Links 2.1 has
javascript support, but it was written from scratch and doesn't
implement the latest official standard for javascript.  Also, since the
origional links didn't have all the features needed in a modern browser,
it will run into problems on javascript sites even if it's javascript
works corectly.  Links 0.97 didn't have support for cookies, http
authorization, and did other things to hide data from sites you visit
with it.  The site for links 0.99 is:

http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~mikulas/vyplody/links/

To add to the confusion, there is another child of the origional links
browser.  This one is called elinks.  Elinks has changed the most from
the origional links code.  It started because the developer of elinks
submited patches to add features to the origional links.  The developer
of the origional links wasn't interested in them, so the elinks
developer started his own browser based on the origional source.
Javascript support is just now being added to elinks.  The developers
wanted to wait until the had DOM and CSS support in elinks before
starting to add javascript support.  The javascript support in elinks
usees the spidermonkey javascript interpreter.  Links 2.1 uses an
interpreter written from scratch.  This makes it hard to maintain or
modify.  The javascript support in elinks is still in early development,
so you might get better results on javascript sites with links 2.1.  It will
depend on whether the site uses other things not supported by links 2.1.
The developer of links 2.1 seems more interested in adding graphic
features than updating the javascript, so I believe elinks will turn out
to be the best console browser.  The web site for elinks is:

http://elinks.or.cz

Lynx (the cat) doesn't seem to be geting the same amount of development
as elinks.  It might be posible to add javascript support to it, but the
official developers don't seem to be interested.
Personally, I use either elinks or lynx (the cat).  Elinks has features
I don't find in other console browsers.

Hope this helps.
          Kenny
	  
On Thu, Oct 14, 2004 at 09:38:07AM -0400, LARRY SKUTCHAN wrote:
> Speaking of Lynx and Links, can some of you experts discuss what the advantages and disadvantages are of each of them.  As a newbie, they seem pretty darn similar to me.  I have also noticed that W3m looks pretty good, and it has the cool feature of letting you use the arrow keys to navigate the document.  (It uses Tab to move from link to link.)
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> 
> >>> janina at rednote.net Thursday, October 14, 2004 9:23:16 AM >>>
> Oops. I totaly missed seeing that.
> 
> Guess I need another pot of coffee this morning.
> 
> Sorry.
> 
> Luke Yelavich writes:
> > On Thu, Oct 14, 2004 at 09:10:54PM EST, Leslie Fairall wrote:
> > > Does anyone know if you can change the user-agent string in links the 
> > > chain? I use the cat with Bank of America by doing this, but would like to 
> > > have access to some features that require Javascript. I wish there was a 
> > > way where I could save the user-agent string whenever I go to the website. 
> > > Does anyone else do the same thing? Thanks.
> > 
> > Yes you can do this. Go into the settings menu, and choose the network
> > options. A quick way is simply to press ALT + S, then N. Find the HTTP
> > options, and press enter on it. In there, there is a field that you can
> > type in a different user agent. It is called fake user agent, and one of
> > the last options in this window.
> > 
> > Hope this helps.
> > 
> > Luke
> > 
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> 
> -- 
> 	
> 				Janina Sajka, Chair
> 				Accessibility Workgroup
> 				Free Standards Group (FSG)
> 
> janina at freestandards.org	Phone: +1 202.494.7040
> 
> 
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