At 06:50 PM 10/9/2004 +0200, you wrote:
Jeroen Hellingman <jeroen@bohol.ph> writes:
I am a big supporter of XML, but I challenge you to automatically create an acceptible ASCII version from one of my XML files without manual intervention...
Don't waste your time on so called ASCII version. Simple HTML as a replacement for the traditional ASCII version is "good enough" - then tools like lynx or w3m or links(?) can do the dirty work. I do not know whether there are special HTML device for the blind; but I know some of them use lynx to browse (parts of) the web.
Hello. Yes, I am blind and I still use Lynx regularly. However, it does not create clean ASCII files. Every page I convert has tww blank spaces at the beginning of every line and it inserts junk to mark links and image placeholders. Also, more and more sites no longer work with text browsers so using Lynx or Links is becoming a thing of the past. Please don't even get me started on how poor Internet Explorer does at plain text dumps, however it is currently the most accessible graphical browser. One thing I really like about the current PG model is that I can quickl go to the ftp site, grab a file, unzip it and have readable plain text. I would not want to have to download a master xml file and convert it or have the PG site convert it on the fly and try to download it with my browser. Let's not lose sight of the goal of PG, to make as many ebooks available to as many people on as many platforms as possible. I can download the same file to my Windows or Linux machines and they are just as accessible. I can load it into a portable notetaker for the blind and it is still just as accessible. I can even put it on my old Apple II and yes, it's still accessible. I hope this doesn't change.