Yes, of course that's ugly. The proper solution would be to have
something like a <FIG> tag which is a wrapper, and inside the wrapper
could go a complete textual representation of the page as a list or
menu or whatever. We'll continue to have these problems until <IMG>
is dead and buried and replaced by something that's well-designed.
But this is a problem to be solved at the HTML level, not the HTTP
level.
> I think that my script is better than this server.
Er, actually, lots of Lynx clients send "image/gif" in the Accept:
field, depending how the mailcap file is configured. The inclusion of
"image/gif" absolutely does not tell you that a viewer can display
inlined images, nor does its absence tell you a viewer cannot do so.
Somebody may actually make a client that (gasp!) realizes that if you
send */* in an Accept: field there is no point in sending anything
else unless there are some additional values.
Your script is the HTTP equivalent of using invisible GIFs to try to
center text; whether that's a good or bad thing is a religious
question, but it's certainly a brittle thing.
(Now, how long until somebody invents an HTTP equivalent to colored
balls as list bullets? :-)
-- Marc VanHeyningen <http://www.cs.indiana.edu/hyplan/mvanheyn.html>