Welcome to the eLynah Forum!

[John E Hayes III \'98 \'00]

JTW said: "I could counter that if you write for the spec and not the browser, the number of hoops through which you have to jump is greatly reduced..."

John you are absolutely correct, in theory, except that Netscape 4 doesn't adhere to the current standards.  God knows that IE for x86 is barely an improvement. Admittedly, self styled "web designers" only make the process worse by designing for IE 8.9 with Shockwave, Flash, Java and javascript, viewed at 1600x1200 on a 3 week old Dell hooking to the backbone via an OC3.  As such, they should be taken out back and beaten with a 33.6 external modem.

However, given that content, not design is what really matters, style sheets are a step in the right direction as they allow content to be separated from design. A padded, shimmed traditional table based design is a nightmare in a screenreader browser. Admittedly, eLynah has a slightly different audience as I doubt many blind readers are trying to download hockey video clips but the point remains that style sheets make the web more accessable, not less.

Historically, IE for the Macintosh has been the most standard compliant browser around (other than maybe Opera/x86), which I assume is one of the reasons Age has used it. Yet, netscape 4.x stalwarts, of which I was one for a long time, seem want to blame Apple or Microsoft, for the inability of their prefered browser to follow the current spec.

If the case for Netscape 4.x was set cased in terms of a anti-monoculture argument against MS controlling the browser market, I'd agree whole heartly were it not for the existance of a modern, cross-platform, free, open standards compliant browser. Given the willingness of NS users to readily upgrade to 4.75+ browsers, the barrier to entry for a compliant browser doesn't seem to installing new software.

Of course, I understand that Corporate IS departments, not individuals frequently make software decisions, and as such, users may not have a choice. However, given the nature of the content on this site, I find this argument less compelling than I would for say a maunfacturing b2b site.

I guess what I'm trying to say that although sites should allow a minimum level of access from any browser and designers that defeat this goal by use to javascript browser detection voodoo should be beaten, users of products with known deficiencies should also be understanding that, with limited resources, web designers can only meet the needs of the majority, most the time.

-j

[CowbellGuy]

If only every broswer looked like this...

www.elynah.com/elf/omnielf.jpg

Long live OmniWeb...

[CowbellGuy]

The Jabber problem should be fixed.
The number of posts in the user profile is fixed.
Lots of font/formatting tweaks.

[Kyle Rose]

John: Age and I already had words regarding the finer points of Linux/free software promotion.  The forum change basically comes down to a combination of an ideological difference between us and the fact that the old software was feature- and maintenance-deprived and needed to be replaced, with Age having more time to work on it than I.  I have no hard feelings, but it unfortunately wasn't the most amicable process. :´-(

Kyle

[big red apple]

I don't know if I like this more or less than CHDF yet - too soon to tell (though I ALWAYS have to edit my posts), but if you weren't prepared to hear that some people preferred CHDF, you probably shouldn't have asked the question.

[big red apple]

See, upon further review, I probably would have just deleted that last post.  :-/

In any event, I am posting again because I can't figure out how to register. Directions, please.

[CowbellGuy]

Click Log In, then click the link asking if you need a new account.

[Neil Shapiro \'83]

Age,

Just wondering if it would be possible to have that "new" tag show up in the flat view.  This would make it easy to scroll down to the first message that you haven't seen.

[Beeeej]

Also, Age, it seems that the "Next Message" link doesn't always take you to the next message (vertically) in the thread as it did in the CHDF.  Example:

- Thread 1, Message 1
- Thread 1, Message 2
  - Thread 1, Reply to Message 2
- Thread 1, Message 3

If I'm reading Reply to Message 2 and hit "Next Message," it often takes me to a completely separate thread instead of to Message 3.

Beeeej

[peterg]

Age - The site is great.  It would be useful (to me, at least) to have a "show topics" link at the end of the last reply in the flat view.  I scroll down through the messages and it would be nice to just have a link there on the page to go back to all current topics.

Peter

[jason]

I second Peter's request.

[CowbellGuy]

Easy enough. I'll add that sometime tomorrow. Thanks for the feedback

[peterg]

Age - Works like a charm!  THANKS!

Peter