[Gimp-web] Netscape 4.x (was Re: anyone try the news out?)

[Raphaël Quinet]

On 03 Apr 2003 18:06:45 +0200, Niklas <scizzo@sector7.nu> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Raphael.....are you suggesting that we should rewrite and restructure
> the site totally or something?

Not a complete rewrite, but at least the parts defining the page
structure (header, menu, etc.) should be rewritten using tables
instead of CSS positioning.

> The suggestions you have said is good..yes...but this will bring even
> more work...not only for the people developing the site but the people
> updating the site later.
> 
> The Server Side Includes is a way to easy change _all_ sites without
> having to edit more then one file. Example: Menu...would you like to
> change the menu in one file or in 20 files?
> 
> So the Server Side stuff is there to help you not the people viewing the
> site.

No, you have misunderstood me on that point: I recommended to have all
pages as static HTML files.  But there should be some scripts that
generate these static files from a set of templates.  The templates
would contain (more or less) what is currently in the SSI files.  So
the system would not change much for those who have to create or
update pages: there would still be a set of files (templates) defining
how the pages should look like, and another set of files (source
files) defining the contents of the generated pages.

A simple way to look at this would be to consider the following
directory stucture:
  ./scripts/            <- scripts and utilities for publishing pages
  ./templates/          <- page templates
  ./source/             <- HTML pages without any fancy decorations
  ./source/about/          ...
  ./source/tutorials/      ...
  (...)
  ./html/               <- generated HTML pages ready to be viewed
  ./html/about/            ...
  ./html/tutorials/        ...
  (...)
The scripts in the "scripts" directory would read the (X)HTML files in
the "source" directory and its sub-directories, merge them with the
page templates defined in the "templates" directory and generate
static files (without server-side includes) that are then stored in
the "html" directory or its sub-directories.  The web server delivers
the pages from the "html" directory only.   The directories "scripts",
"templates" and "sources" are under CVS control while the "html"
directory isn't.  This is only a suggestion for the directory
structure, but hopefully you can understand what I mean with this
example.

As I explained in my previous message, using static files can reduce
the load greatly.  Using server-side includes or any other type of
dynamic pages can easily increase the load on a server by a factor of
3 or more.  A part of this additional load is due to the additional
processing time required by the server (and inability to use
optimizations such as mmap() or sendfile()).  Another part comes from
the additional HTTP requests caused by the fact that the dynamic pages
cannot be cached as efficiently as if they were static.  Big caching
proxies such as those installed at AOL and other major ISPs can really
make a difference.

> NS 4.x is a problem yes.....but this would mean we have to restructure
> the whole code base and change the CSS file totally?

As I wrote above and in my previous message, it should not be
necessary to change the CSS file totally.  The positioning information
will have to go, but the styles used for colors, fonts, etc. can be
kept.

I know that we will have to drop the compliance with XHTML Strict
because this is not possible if we still want to support Netscape 4.
Support for Netscape 4.x requires usage of tables with bgcolor
attributes, which are deprecated in the Strict DTD.  But it is
possible to use XHTML 1.0 Transitional without too much effort.  I
have done that for another large site and although the (X)HTML code is
not as pretty as it could be, it works in all browsers and this should
be the main goal.  We should not exclude GIMP users from the site.

> I know nothing about scripts that generates the pages. But I am
> wondering why people still is using NS 4.x instead of NS 7.x? Ok yes
> some have it hard to upgrade to new versions, but how long would it take
> before people actually are using NS 7.x?

Some people are stuck with Netscape 4 and will probably not be able to
upgrade now or in the near future.  Switching browsers is relatively
easy if you are using your own PC, but not if you are using a computer
provided by your company or your university.  Both Mozilla and
Netscape 7 require much more disk space and much more memory than the
old NN 4.x.  In addition, they do not work so well on a 256-colors
display.  And Mozilla or Phoenix are not "officially supported" so
they cannot be installed in some companies.

Believe it or not, there are still many people who have to use some
rather old SGI or Sun machines that have slow CPUs (about the power of
a Pentium 100) or not a lot of memory or disk space (especially if
disk quotas are enforced) so installing the newer browsers is not an
option for them.  There are people who are using old machines provided
by their company for browsing the web, even if they have a more
powerful machine at home for using the GIMP.  Also, don't forget that
free software such as the GIMP is also used in developing countries,
for which accessing the Internet is a luxury.  If the only computer
from which some people can access the web has NN 4.x on it, then let's
not prevent them from accessing www.gimp.org.

Before I looked at the current logs of www.gimp.org, I expected that
we would have only a few visitors per day using NN 4.x.  But as I
discovered yesterday, there are hundreds of them visiting the site.
It would not be a problem if the new site would only be a bit degraded
and would not look as good in NN 4.x as in the other browsers, but
unfortunately NN 4.x does not work at all when CSS positioning is
used.  So these people would not even be able to navigate the site.
We should not exclude them.

Please test the new site with NN 4.x and think about what you would do
if NN 4.x was the only browser that you could use.

-Raphaël