How can I target text-based browsers?

Question

I'd like to include mark-up that makes it easier for users of text-based browsers (links, elinks, lynx) to consume my site. I'll be able to serve this special version of the site based on useragent, however what mark-up features do text-based browsers handle especially well?

Answer 1

Your best bet is just to make heavy use of CSS for all the formatting. It's unlikely that text-based agents will support everything, so providng you drop all style info in an external stylesheet (mostly for ease of maintenance), and just use class attributes where needed, then you'll probably find the site degrades gracefully. Most (all?) browsers come with some form of developer toolbar so you can disable styles within, say, Firefox, IE, Chrome [whatever] on demand and you'll get an idea how it's likely to be seen by text-only browsers.

The only thing to be careful of is tables -- lynx doesn't support them, but other text-based browsers do (to a greater or lesser extent). Again, just make sure the page degrades gracefully as far as it possibly can.

Ultimately using CSS for all your layout and a chunk of your formatting should mean that most worries related to text-based should be resolved.