ncarroll> They have the savvy to know that if you want to code for a GUI
browser,
> you need to have a GUI broswer.
Maybe we have to educate them that if they want a live page for editing and
adding comments, and if they want us to do it effectively, then they need a
DOM1 or DOM2 browser. At this point, anyone that holds onto a 3 browser
isn't really interested in an interactive web. Anyone that holds onto a 4
browser expects special DOM0 scripting to accomodate them. Let's just not do
it. NS6.2, IE5+ and Mozilla M12 or maybe M14 will all work the same. Within
6 months, most everyone can be convinced to try one of these.
> (If there was a way we could
> offer faster, kinder downloads off the BI web site that might be nice).
Great Point!
> They have been using PCs 10-15 years. They have set ways of doing
> things, and legacy software they don't like to give up -- including 3.02
> NS and IE.
They will need to play in a different sandbox. Those folks may want to try
to develop an OHS interface for those old tools, but I think we should not
worry about it.
Thanks and you are doing good thinking on this.
Joe
PS. From my experience, I feel so strongly about this - about how good the
DOM2 and XML enabled browsers are - that when I saw a note from a top
ranking Mozilla eng or eng admin and he said that he still uses
NS4.something as a day to day browser. This concerns me because no one using
that old stuff can really have any idea of what it is to work with a truly
live page.
----- Original Message -----
From: "ncarroll" <ncarroll@inreach.com>
To: <ohs-dev@bootstrap.org>
Sent: August 11, 2000 2:50 PM
Subject: Re: Basic Browser Requirements?
> Ah, hah! Perfect timing, I just dashed off the KISS
> viewpoint.
>
> ===============================
>
> Subject: Thoughts on OHS-EC user groups and browser compatibilty.
>
>
> 5 potential user groups for the OHS-EC (email client):
>
>
> 1. Potential OSS developers. While many of these use Lynx or other
> text-based browsers as their main browser, I believe most have a copy of
> a 4.x+ browser lying around by now. The Linux Documentation Project took
> a shellacking a year ago for introducing CSS that was not 3.0
> compatible, and pulled down the CSS the next morning. I believe by now
> most Linux users have caved in and download a newer browser.
>
> They have the savvy to know that if you want to code for a GUI browser,
> you need to have a GUI broswer. (Well, most of them will understand
> that.) So they if they buy in to the development process, the 16mb
> download shouldn't be too big a hurdle. (If there was a way we could
> offer faster, kinder downloads off the BI web site that might be nice).
>
> Needless to say(?) the EC has to be NS compatible if Linux boxes are
> going to run it.
>
>
> 2. Business users. They go with the corporate sell-in, and the decisions
> are made for them by CTOs and IT managers, thus they are generally up to
> IE5 and NS4.72 already.
>
>
> 3. Newbies. Most of them have pretty new computers, which means 4.0+ NS
> or IE.
>
>
> 4. AOL users. Making an interface AOL-compatible is a PITA. For
> ecommerce sites I make some attempt to accommodate them, since they have
> money like anyone else.
>
> However, I doubt they would make much attempt to use OHS. The day they
> do, it will be beause AOL pushes it on them ... at which point
> compatiblity issues would have been resolved between OSS people and AOL
> techies.
>
>
> 5. Experienced PC/Mac users. This is the group that concerns me most. In
> terms of word-of-mouth distribution, the OHS may one day be relying on
> this group to spread OHS from the hacker community to the masses. Their
> "buy-in" could be quite important.
>
> They have been using PCs 10-15 years. They have set ways of doing
> things, and legacy software they don't like to give up -- including 3.02
> NS and IE. Newbies will simply follow orders (or panic) if told to
> download the latest browser. Experienced users won't; they regard such
> commands as bullying. If JavaScript is used, it might be worth
> considering NS and IE 3.02 and Opera 3 browser compatiblity. Of course
> that would also knock out HTML 4.
>
> At the same time, average modem speed for this group is rising fairly
> fast. The client-side savings in download time that looked so tempting a
> few years ago is not so important at 56kbs and up. Server-side tools
> like PHP might do the job as handily with less compatibility conflicts,
> especially since the OHS-EC is likely to be light on graphics.
>
>
> Anyway ... groups 2 and 3 are compatible now. Group 4 won't understand
> the OHS without AOL help.
>
> At the moment it's all about groups 1 and 5.
>
> ===============================================
>
> Source of opinions on groupings: I track/crunch a lot of server logs.
> Analyst figures like "Only 2.74% of users have 3.x browsers" collapse
> pretty quick when one views sites where 26% of the visitors use legacy
> versions of Opera or Mozilla.
>
>
>
> --
> ______________________________________________________
>
> Nicholas Carroll
> Email: ncarroll@inreach.com
> Alternate: ncarroll@iname.com
> http://www.hastingsresearch.com/white_papers
> ______________________________________________________
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0.0 : Tue Aug 21 2001 - 17:57:49 PDT