3 ms·

Unfortunately lynx, links and and w3m will only work on a subset of websites.

smitty1e 3y ago
Crying shame, that.
1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
Can you provide some examples of websites that do not "work". I really want to know. If being able to read the textual content of a website is the goal, as it is for me and in the case of a text-only browser, then generally, IME, all websites work. The ones that do not work in the text-only browser are usually ones where some JSON is fetched then parsed with Javascript. In those cases, I just fetch the JSON and tranform it into more human-readable text, if necessary. No need for an HTML reader, i.e., browser. For example, I currently have a list of 96,339 websites that work, meaning I can read the textual content. This is composed mostly from sites submitted to HN over the past 18 months. It does not make much sense to try to put a Javascript interpreter into a text-only browser. Some have tried and it did not prove worthwhile. There are command line utilities that are much more efficient than Javascript for requesting and parsing JSON to text. The purpose of a text-only browser is to read text/html, not to run arbitrary code, e.g., "web apps". If a website has some particular graphical presentation, e.g., some "fucntionality" that relies on Javascript, then one does not choose a text-only browser to see it. The text-only browser makes all websites look more or less the same. It's "anti-graphical". It effectively removes most of the variations in appearance and layout across websites, which as one might guess, are usually due to graphics (e.g., fonts), graphical content (e.g., images) and Javascript.
- smitty1e 3y ago
  I would expect Google Docs to fare poorly in text mode.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
    Yep, graphics do not work. That's why it's called a "text-only browser". If like Office documents with non-textmode fonts and other graphics, then why use a text-only browser. Text-only browser, by definition, does not display graphics. (I do not use links -g.) Text-only browser is for reading text/html. If just want to download a document from some Google Docs endpoint, then this can be done with an HTTP client or a TCP client. Could use a text-mode browser for downloading documents but most times it's overkill, not "right tool for the job".

Crying shame, that.

Can you provide some examples of websites that do not "work". I really want to know. If being able to read the textual content of a website is the goal, as it is for me and in the case of a text-only browser, then generally, IME, all websites work. The ones that do not work in the text-only browser are usually ones where some JSON is fetched then parsed with Javascript. In those cases, I just fetch the JSON and tranform it into more human-readable text, if necessary. No need for an HTML reader, i.e., browser. For example, I currently have a list of 96,339 websites that work, meaning I can read the textual content. This is composed mostly from sites submitted to HN over the past 18 months. It does not make much sense to try to put a Javascript interpreter into a text-only browser. Some have tried and it did not prove worthwhile. There are command line utilities that are much more efficient than Javascript for requesting and parsing JSON to text. The purpose of a text-only browser is to read text/html, not to run arbitrary code, e.g., "web apps". If a website has some particular graphical presentation, e.g., some "fucntionality" that relies on Javascript, then one does not choose a text-only browser to see it. The text-only browser makes all websites look more or less the same. It's "anti-graphical". It effectively removes most of the variations in appearance and layout across websites, which as one might guess, are usually due to graphics (e.g., fonts), graphical content (e.g., images) and Javascript.

smitty1e 3y ago
I would expect Google Docs to fare poorly in text mode.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
  Yep, graphics do not work. That's why it's called a "text-only browser". If like Office documents with non-textmode fonts and other graphics, then why use a text-only browser. Text-only browser, by definition, does not display graphics. (I do not use links -g.) Text-only browser is for reading text/html. If just want to download a document from some Google Docs endpoint, then this can be done with an HTTP client or a TCP client. Could use a text-mode browser for downloading documents but most times it's overkill, not "right tool for the job".