[6517] in www-talk@info.cern.ch
Re: hmmm... servers producing per-browser customised output.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Brian Behlendorf)
Wed Nov 2 16:42:37 1994
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 1994 22:39:53 +0100
Errors-To: listmaster@www0.cern.ch
Reply-To: brian@wired.com
From: Brian Behlendorf <brian@wired.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list <www-talk@www0.cern.ch>
On Wed, 2 Nov 1994, anthony baxter wrote:
> Recently I've noticed several servers generating output customised for
> the browser that is being used - eg http://www.netmarket.com, if you
> connect using m*saic, suggests that you change to using m*zilla (aside
> from the fact that I cannot get m*zilla for my decstation, thats a fine
> idea :), but I digress). And theres at least one other server out there
> that tries to customise all output so that it looks best on whichever
> browser you are using (and as a result, produces far too much broken
> HTML.)
I use it a couple of places, most prominently on the subscriber form to warn
users of WinMosaic or MacWeb or WinWeb that their browsers do *not* work on
HotWired (the first can't post in a user-authenticated area, the latter
don't have user authentication). Nowhere do I use it to function as a
way to make things look different for different browsers.
> Seems to me this is another example of why we need stylesheets - if
> providers are to the point of customising the output for your browser,
> then there's obviously a need for control over presentation.
Well, in my case is represents a need for quality control.
> I'm dreading the day where pages are just one large imagemap gif of the
> page, exactly as the provider wants it to look.
We're not that bad yet, but I have seen that elsewhere....
Brian
