I am a long time lurker here, though not a programmer, but a system admin and professional manager, open source enthusiast. A trend which I am seeing is that websites may use latest programming paradigms and designs to make them beautiful and stunning, yet they are so engrossed in javascript and 'awesome' interactive graphics and images, that a website cannot be viewed without javascript and images disabled. To save bandwidth or during slow wireless speeds, it is desirable to run browser without javascript and images disabled but websites don't have any kind of 'text only' versions for such use. In an ideal situation, every website should have 'text only' version which can be opened in CLI browser like Links. As an example, this startup http://qfusionlabs.com/ website looks like blowing a bubble without javascript and images disabled.
Edit: I am glad that Hacker News works perfectly without javascript and images disabled! Why can't all of discrete websites be like this.
Ask HN: Why don't websites have 'text only' backup versions?
1–10 of 63 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why don't websites have 'text only' backup versions?
#2To me, any website implementing good accessibility (http://www.w3.org/WAI/) is likely to be perfectly viewable and browsable per what you said. But most webmasters don't know about WAI.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't websites have 'text only' backup versions?
#3Because the business case isn't there, in terms of the cost/benefit. It's a lot of work (maybe not initially, but maintaining that functionality on an ongoing basis slows development), to support a tiny number of users, who you can't make any money advertising to (if you're ad-supported) and who are probably not the kind of users who buy much (if you sell directly).
Re: Ask HN: Why don't websites have 'text only' backup versions?
#4I think main reason is that number of users with JS disabled these days is just too small to care.
Another thing is even if the effort of enabling is small, people responsible for the website are not even aware of the problem.
As an experiment I would drop a note to a few websites broken with JS disabled about a problem, providing a reasoning why it should be fixed and check how many respond.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't websites have 'text only' backup versions?
#5Some do, it's called an RSS Feed.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't websites have 'text only' backup versions?
#6This reminds me of the rarely-used print stylesheet[0]. In fact, the only place I've ever seen it in use is on websites run by the Dutch government (perhaps other governments do so too, but I've never needed to check them out).
EDIT: A bit of online searching mainly shows people *complaining8 about print sheets, so perhaps I'm completely out of the loop and simply haven't printed anything in a long time.
It's not much - just stripping out menu bars and other stuff that makes no sense in print, plus a few typographical changes, such as a change in font from sans serif (screen) to serif (paper).
Similar to the other comment, there isn't a clear business case for it very often, but whenever there's a website with a "print version"-link to their articles I don't see why they wouldn't do this instead. Well, aside from the fact that nobody would expect this functionality to be there, which isn't minor I guess.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't websites have 'text only' backup versions?
#7If you are a manager, then you will surely understand.
It's mostly because the website owner/responsible believes that the cost of producing a "text only" version would be bigger than the benefits achieved. If the decision is right or not, I wouldn't know - and, frankly, neither most of people who make the decision (albeit being "confident"). I seriously doubt that any thorough analysis is done on the subject, people just believe that almost everyone uses JS and images. And they might be right, or not.
Sometimes it might also be a matter of ignorance. It might happen that the responsible is not aware of this question (and neither is "made aware" by the technical people).
Re: Ask HN: Why don't websites have 'text only' backup versions?
#8Because it isn't worth it, basically. It's a relatively simple economic decision - making a text only backup version takes time, programming, adds an extra possibility for failure, etc. etc. - and the people who want a text only version are an extremely small minority.
I know that sounds a little heartless and "not caring about the web", but it's the reality.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't websites have 'text only' backup versions?
#9[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Why don't websites have 'text only' backup versions?
#10Not the answer to the question, but that particular site is somewhat (a little of the text and one or two images) readable without the JavaScript if you turn the styles off.
I've just tried it with JS, actually it's a very little of the whole content.