Re: w3 issues

[Tim Cross <tcross@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I like w3 for a number of practicle and philosophical reasons -

1. I find in some cases the rendering and way ou can navigate the
pages better than w3m
2. I like the better voice locking and support for audio styles.
3. Originally, it had better integration with xslt transformations
than w3m, though I have to admit not taking as great advantage of this
as I could.
4. From a philosophical standpoint, I believe w3 offers better emacs
integration than w3m - this may be theoretical at this time and
unfortunately, due to lack of active development is becoming more so. 
5. W3 forms support use to be a lot better than w3m under emacspeak
6. I like the fact that if something doesn't work, I can probably work
around it a lot easier with w3 than if I had the same problem with
w3m. I have in the past 'advised' some w3 functions to overcome some
problem/limitation. This isn't as easy with w3m because you don't have
access to the code that actually does the work - you only have access
to the interface wrapper.
7. w3 was the first browser I used under emacs. In fact, it was really
great for a while back in the emacs 20 days. Its rendering was
sometimes too slow, but to some extent, w3 gave the best interface to
the web I've ever used. Unfortunately, the combination of few active
developers and the rapid pace of change on the web means its not as
good as it use to be. 

I think w3m is also pretty good, but also has some limitations.
Sometimes I find the way it renders pages less than optimal and often
things are done in such a way you really have to scroll around a lot.
W3 may be slower, but it often renders things in a much more usable
fashion for me. Of course, everyone's milage will differ. 

Given the current state of w3 and advances/changes made in emacs, I
sometimes wonder if it would be worth starting from scratch and doing
a completely new w3 that takes advantage of more recent packages,
advanced screen rendering, overlays etc. I also wonder how we are
going to handle the growth in AJAX based pages and the need for
JavaScript support, but I've mentioned that before. 

My general philosophy is that when it comes to adaptive technology, it
is often necessary to use multiple tools as none seem totally
satisfactory in all situations. The trick is knowing which tool for
which job. I think only experience and practice will resolve this
issue.

Tim

I would love to have the time to work actively on w3, but there are
too many other priorities for the foreseable future to allow this. 
Robert D. Crawford writes:
 > I fetched the cvs version of url and w3 this morning and nothing has
 > changed.  For the last two days or so, I have been using w3 for
 > everything it will work for and the conclusion I have come to is that
 > voicification of italics and pre tags are the only compelling reasons
 > for me to use w3.  I _do_ realize that I have barely scratched the
 > surface of this package, but with the speed penalty, the hit-and-miss on
 > whether the site will render, the fact that linearize-tables doesn't
 > seem to work all the time, the fact that the documentation is, I
 > believe, out-of-date, and that it seems that w3 is going the way of
 > disco... I think my time would be better served trying to make w3m work
 > to do the things that keep people using w3.
 > 
 > Concerning my final statement, why do people continue to use w3?  I know
 > there are people, like Tim and, I think,  Robert C. that use both on a
 > regular basis.  What, for those who use both, are the reasons?
 > 
 > Thanks to all that tried to help.  Your assistance is always welcome and
 > appreciated.  
 > 
 > rdc
 > 
 > -- 
 > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 > Robert D. Crawford                                      rdc1x@xxxxxxxxxxx
 > 
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