The text browser experience

4 min read (770 words)

#dev #web

Ok whatever, I heard about zola and then two days later I saw the article You no longer need JavaScript. And it's true, I don't think I need JavaScript, or images. I want to know how my blog works and also for it to work ok in text browsers.

For example, here's the beginning of the article I mentioned as opened in w3m:

  • lyra's epic blog
  • posts
  • tags

You no longer need JavaScript

2025-08-28

  • ¦ css

So much of the web these days is ruined by the bloat that is modern JavaScript frameworks. React apps that take several
seconds to load. NextJS sites that throw random hydration errors. The node_modules folder that takes up gigabytes on
your hard drive.

It’s awful. And you don’t need it.

Name                                 Status Type       Size     Time
app                                  200    document   153.8 kB 51 ms
6920616d20612066-s.p.6f6e7421.woff2  200    font       31.5 kB  32 ms
686579206d652074-s.p.6f6f2121.woff2  200    font       28.5 kB  116 ms
77687920646f6573.css                 200    stylesheet 253 kB   47 ms
2074686520646566.js                  200    script     648 kB   83 ms
61756c74206e6578.js                  200    script     166 kB   363 ms
746a732074616b65.js                  200    script     83.3 kB  46 ms
turbopack-20757020302e354d.js        200    script     38.0 kB  95 ms
423f207468617427.js                  200    script     414 B    34 ms
73206d6f72652074.js                  200    script     32.6 kB  49 ms
68616e206d792065.js                  200    script     15.1 kB  71 ms
6e7469726520626c.js                  200    script     143 kB   48 ms
≪ ↑ ↓ Viewing[SSL] <You no longer need JavaScript Ʊ lyra's epic blog>

Before the post, there's a few navigation links, and then we're all good. Despite the subject matter, the post is fairly accessible without any CSS. Meanwhile, my blog's header looks like this:

lezbian haxxor

  • Menu ▾
  •
      □ RSS feed

  • RSS feed

You can add arguments to a command after a file redirection in POSIX shells

2025-07-127 min read (1312 words)
#dev  #english

Why are we here? Well, it’s because I was practicing my beloved activity of redirecting image files into aplay so I

A menu button and two RSS feed links, all for that to look like this in a desktop browser:

RSS feed

Or on mobile:

RSS feed

The thing is, this is on blog posts where the point is the content of the post, not navigation, and I'm bothering text browser / screenreader users with duplicated links to my RSS feed, what's up with that? I don't want that.

How do others do it?

I often use w3m to browse indie websites and often get a "Skip to content" link followed by a navigation list, and then the content. Thankfully anchor links work in w3m, so it's good and also the recommended behavior for accessibility (todo: source). Nice!

Some other sites have a link to a sitemap page.

The new design

  • blog post pages only include the required content: blog title, article title, article content and assets, navigation (homepage link, blog post list page link), copyright
  • blog post list page only includes the required content: blog title, feed links, list of posts (date, title with link, read time, word count), navigation (homepage link), copyright
  • blinkies are moved to a new page linked by the homepage
  • there's a homepage now

even if i remove the blinkies from the blog, i want to include their messages, especially about Palestine. there's no blog here without the struggle for a free Palestine and free palestinians

Free Palestine Now!!!

Oh shit, nice, a pure CSS version of the stamp (animation unfortunately not included).

reboot

Plan :

  1. Why I wanted to redo this all
  2. Look at my and other websites in a text browser
  3. What I want to achieve
  4. How I did