Item13812: Foswiki 2.0 useless without javascript

I am used to accessing and editing wiki content easily from miscellaneous devices. Where WYSIWYG was not working, I could switch to raw editor and get stuff done.

It is now not possible at all, "Save" and any other buttons are not working without javascript, regardless of WYSIWYG mode enabled.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Disable Javascript (or use any other older browser, in my case it was MicroB in Nokia N900)
2. Edit any page
3. Click Save

Result: Changes are not saved.

-- JurajVariny - 11 Oct 2015

If you remove the "natedit" skin, it will restore the old plain text editor. Note that you also have to disable strikeone protection. But, yes, Foswiki is becoming more dependent on JavaScript. I doubt that this is going to change. You can set a custom SKIN setting in your user topic.

-- GeorgeClark - 12 Oct 2015

Browsers without javascript aren't supported by Foswiki out of the box. We once decided to assume that nowadays everybody should have access to a sufficiantly standard browser that implements javascript. Of course this was different 15 years ago when we still had to deal with IE6 and the like. But as almost all vendors constantly move forward in web standards. So we then decided to strip off the burden of having to support browsers without javascript and rapidly moved forward. I wonder which parts of the web still makes sense using your device...

-- MichaelDaum - 12 Oct 2015

Is the discussion about the "burden of having to support browsers without javascript" available anywhere? I don't see any technical reason why keeping rudimentary non-JS edit and view functionality would be a burden, especially if it's so simple like GeorgeClark suggests: "just remove natedit skin".

-- JurajVariny - 12 Oct 2015

Case in point: http://thenextweb.com/dd/2015/12/24/the-unknown-browser-with-300-million-users-thats-breaking-your-site/

Please.

-- JurajVariny - 25 Dec 2015

The discussion was spread over a long period and may be documented somewhere in Development web, though I doubt that it's a crisp summary. The argument goes something like this:

1. If we ignore Javascript, we miss out on a huge amount of really attractive functionality.
2. Supporting non-JS takes effort. That is effort that could be spent on supporting JS better.
3. Nobody interested in supporting JS better cared about supporting non-JS.

That last one is the killer - unless someone steps up and puts the effort in to support non-JS, then it won't get done. Developers tend to be driven by their own motives, and unless you can motivate them to do something differently, it won't get done.

If it is as simple as removing natedit (and it may well be) then I'm sure someone could be motivated ($ or patch code) to do it.

-- Main.CrawfordCurrie - 29 Dec 2015 - 09:33

The "removing natedit" is really a local site decision.

• Site wide: Set SKIN = pattern in Main SitePreferences
• User specific: Set SKIN = pattern in their User topic.

I don't see that there is anything we need to do to support this. Last I checked, the old text editor works fine without javascript if Strikeone is disabled, and SKIN omits natedit.

-- GeorgeClark - 30 Dec 2015

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