interact.airmedia.org chat

[Lorenzo Taylor]

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Sorry for the thread, but I lost the previous message.

OK.  I tried both links2 and elinks with interact.airmedia.org, ad we have a
much bigger problem than I first thought.  The chat client used by this site is
not using javascript.  It's a java applet.  There is a lot of confusion about
this since the names java and javascript are quite similar.  Unfortunately for
all of us, they are two entirely different things.  The major differences for
the purpose of this topic is that links2 and elinks are somewhat capable of
handling javascript.  Neither will even touch java.  So we are now down to three
possible solutions:

1.  ditch the applet, which is the best way to go for accessibility, but is
probably not something they can or will do.
2.  Create an IRC or Jabber gateway that will access the java-based chat client
and allow users to connect to it through more accessible means, this is now the
intermediately difficult solution, as I will discuss below.
3.  write an entirely new text-based browser or extend the capabilities of
links2 or elinks to be able to run java applets.  This is harder than it looks,
since it would require that a java virtual machine be installed on the system
which would handle the java code itself.  The problem is that java applets are
generally graphical in nature, and getting them to run on a text console would
require not only a total rework of the browser, but also a total rework of the
java virtual machine so that it could render the graphical interface using
curses or some other text-based library.  I'm not saying this is impossible by
any means, it's just far beyond the scope of my expertise, and by far the most
difficult solution from a programming standpoint.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

Lorenzo
- -- 
Living your life is a task so difficult, it has never been attempted before.
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