Re: LYNX-DEV FAQ and lynx manual

[Hiram Lester, Jr.]

On Mon, 18 Nov 1996, Joe Kincaid wrote:

> It's a good start, but it strikes me that your categories are too broad. :-)
> I would suggest a front page listing various components of lynx or components
> that lynx interacts with ("the lynx screen", "the lynx keyboard", "using lynx
> on VMS", "bookmark files", etc). Items that fit in two categories ("the lynx
> keyboard under VMS when viewing a bookmark file") would be linked to from 
> menus under each of these categories. Isn't hypertext wonderful?

I have been thinking about some hints and tricks stuff just about the time
this FAQ thing came up, and I think that a hints and tricks should be in
at least 2 portions.  One would be hints and tips for the end user about
how to make your browsing with Lynx more enjoyable and productive (things
like using g)oto and entering a mailto: URL and answering yes when
prompted to include the document to mail the document with comments) and
hints and tricks for HTML authors to make their pages more Lynx friendly
(see full example below).  Maybe there should be subsections within those
2 documents, but I those would be at least 2 main headings.

Now, for the HTML trick I mentioned above.  Tables were really intended
originally for tabular data, but most people use them for formatting text.
I've done a few like this, and found this trick to be handy until Lynx can
properly render tables.  I want a box of menu items to look like this in
Netscape, etc.:

 +----------+----------+----------+
 |  Item A  |   It B   |  Itm C   |  (Hopefully for a real FAQ you can
 +----------+----------+----------+   find better titles :) )
 |  This D  |  E Yeah  |  Btn F   |
 +----------+----------+----------+

Netscape does it just fine, but Lynx prior to 2.5 (2.4-FM actually)
displays it as:

 Item A It B Itm C This D E Yeah Btn F

and Lynx 2.5 and up displays it as:

 Item A It B Itm C
 This D E Yeah Btn F

and they may be centered if you used CENTER around the table.

BUT, if you add BR's to the end of each of the items above, it doesn't
change Netscape or IE's renderings a bit, but even old versions of Lynx
will display it as:

 Item A
 It B
 Itm C
 This D
 E Yeah
 Btn F

and again, they may be centered if you used CENTER around the whole table.
The second rendering is preferable to the first, and the last to me is
even that much better, especially if you are worried about supporting the
old versions of Lynx that are still out there.  I can actually include
some sample source for a real FAQ, but just wanted to give you some idea
of the type of tricks that I mean that your average end user who is just
browsing with Lynx won't be interested in.

   +------------------------------------+-------------------------------+
   | Hiram W. Lester, Jr.               | E-Mail: address@hidden    |
   | Computer Science                   | Home page:                    |
   | Middle Tennessee State University  |   http://pobox.com/~hwlester/ |
   +------------------------------------+-------------------------------+

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