I agree with most Alex's perspective. I'm still convinced that the REAL PROBLEM is the lack of OPTIONS inherent in a particular program. With options, programs grow. Without options, they die.
Which is why, after reviewing everybody's suggestions and suggested alternative programs, I still desire to see the expansion of Arachne's options. Unless I've missed something somewhere, Arachne offers the greatest potential for expansion to meet needs that were not envisioned when the program (or any other program) was originally conceived. So, rather than search for a patchwork quilt of patched-together programs, I want to find some ways to stretch the usefulness of Arachne in various environments. That means (as described in my wish list) ... - a stand-alone Viewer option (with no hidden communication code) - an easy to configure and expand Browser (like the current program) - an HTML - DGI (CGI) - DBMS generic interface for data manipulation - all available under one CORE program (play on words intended) - and all of this available in a free, DOS programming environment Pleeeeease, Santa. Bob On Sun, 22 Dec 2002 7:27:07 +0000 (GMT) Alex Venn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> you write: > > > a problem with all these very nice off-line html viewers > > is that they do not care about non-English texts with diacritical > > (8 bit) characters. If you wanted to read a Czech text you will have > > to install a iso8859-2 font on your DOS system... > > From what I can see, most of the authors of these small and minority > interest utils tend to write what they need and I'd agree that does > result in a certain parochialism unless they happen to have > correspondents in non-english locations. How many ever get asked > about other's needs, I wonder ? > > The current Browse has an attempt at handling 8859-1/Win1252 so the > principal of character translation is in (quite good if the default page > is 850, not so hot if it's 437, probably rubbish with any other). Of > course, mere translation is a far cry from loading a new font. To be > honest, the only driving force for this sort of thing in the UK is the > need for the UKP currency symbol, although in time the EURO may be > another. > > The real problem is the small number of program options - if more utils > were developed in non-english areas of the world it would help, or if a > greater sense on internationalism prevailed, but the juggernaut that > is english increasingly sweeps all before it. > > Alex. > -- ________________________________________________________________ Sign Up for Juno Platinum Internet Access Today Only $9.95 per month! Visit www.juno.com
