Text only version?

[duvien]

Hi,

Will there be a way to include a text only version of Joomla! built into Joomla as an alternative for users?

What i mean is to have a built in function to parse the whole site to offer a text only version.

I have heard about an open source script called betsie (http://betsie.sourceforge.net/) which was release by BBC Education a couple of years ago to address this issue (text only version). It is a perl script to provide a Text to Speech Internet Enhancer that you install own your on site and it is supposed to strip out and help parse your pages as a text only version. I have never really gotten it to work on my sites but i was hoping maybe someone here is using it and could give me some advice on how to set it up properly.

Thank you, 

Sunburst

[sc00zy]

Do you mean something like a Lynx viewer?

http://www.delorie.com/web/lynxview.html
http://www.delorie.com/web/lynxview.cgi ... joomla.org

[duvien]

Thanks for the reply.

I know of Lynx as a text based browser, as i do use this occassionally to test my site on Fedora Core 3.

I was more intested in having the abiity to offer users a text only version of the site by using a parser (ie, betsie). If you go to the http://www.bbc.co.uk website, on the top left below the logo they have a text only version and a mobile version link. Clicking on the text only link will take you to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/education/betsie/parser.pl

I think this is must for any site to follow the accessiblity standards and can resolve many issues, even 3PD coms and mods that don't necessary follow the accessibility guidelines since the perl script (betsie) helps strip out everything and only present the user with texts and links, inlcluding colours.

thank you,

Sunburst

[sc00zy]

Invision Power Board has a feature called "Lo-Fi version".
Example: http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/lofiversion/index.php/

You can switch back to the full version with the link at the footer of the page.

[sc00zy]

Maybe you can also achieve it by making a text only template.
You can easily change templates by publishing the template chooser.

[duvien]

Invision Power Board has a feature called "Lo-Fi version".
Example: http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/lofiversion/index.php/

You can switch back to the full version with the link at the footer of the page.

That's a very good point but the problem is that i have several different templates used to assign to the different sections of my site so i removed the template chooser for that reason.

I think i will keep having a bash at the betsie perl script for the time being...

Thanks for your help.

S

[sc00zy]

You can place a Feature Request over here:
http://developer.joomla.org/sf/tracker/ ... e_requests

[duvien]

You can place a Feature Request over here:
http://developer.joomla.org/sf/tracker/ ... e_requests

Thank you the advice. I have now requested for this feature. Just hope it would be possible without many complications.

thanks again.

S

[vavroom]

Frankly, I'm not too entirely sure why you would complicate your life that way.

If the Joomla! engine produces compliant code (which it will be soon), and you put some thoughts on your template, you don't need to parse the pages and provide text only.

If you do need to, scoozy's solution of having an alternative template would work just fine.  Put a hard coded link in your template(s), to load a stripped down version of it.  This shouldn't be too complicated.

Further, you can specify which version of your css to load depending on media type.  So if you declare media=handheld, you can deliver one css aimed at small screens.  If you declare media=print, you can deliver yet another version designed for the user's printer, etc...

This is a case, I feel, of trying to overly complicate things to achieve a result that should be achieved without undue stress in simpler ways.

The problem of 3PD components not complying *is* an issue.

[hotnuts21]

I have a php script which strips out everything and renders just a Text based page.

However I dont like or reccomend it, because the guidelines say you should only provide an alternate version of the site, (like a text only version) as a last resort to accessibility.

A well made site in xhtml and CSS, will render in text only mode if you switch off the CSS or it should

Unless of course you want to provide a text only version for another reason, then it would be best to develop a site that anyone can use instead.

I can look up the script though if you need it,
rgds
Paul

[vavroom]

A well made site in xhtml and CSS, will render in text only mode if you switch off the CSS or it should

My point eggzactly

[jackbremer]

I have a php script which strips out everything and renders just a Text based page.

dig her out for me then

[hotnuts21]

Its been a while and it did have a security issue which we fixed, but I will have a look and see if I can find it for you.

If you dont hear anything send me a PM as a reminder.

[brian]

Why dont you give this a try
http://extensions.joomla.org/component/ ... Itemid,35/

[jackbremer]

Why dont you give this a try
http://extensions.joomla.org/component/ ... Itemid,35/

I've tried it, and the layout is not to my liking.

If you are using FireFox, and have Web Developer extensions, go to a joomla site and turn off the CSS - that's what would be nice to do via a button on your site

[eyezberg]

If that's all it's very easy: add a link to your template's index.php to switch to a CSS file without any definitions, which you add into the css folder... You might then get the ones definied for your browser..

[duvien]

Or an alternative would be to use Betsie (a perl script to parse all pages as text only): http://betsie.sourceforge.net/

I have it running on my site and it seems to work very well so far.