Re: LYNX-DEV How to implement "tables" in v2.7.1

[David Woolley]

> We have a web server which has a page that, when accessed with Netscape 
> or Explorer, is presented as
> 
> A B C D E F G H I J K L M
> 
> N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 
> When viewed with lynx 2.7.1, it displays as
> 
> A 
> B

The correct fix here is to rewrite the pages properly.  There is no reason
for using tables here and there is no reason for a redundant <br> or <p> tag
in each cell (there is a case for the occasional one for the benefit of non-
tables browsers, but again there is no good reason for tables.

As this is an internal page, I think the reason has to be the use of
a WYSIWYG (except that HTML doesn't guarantee what you get) editor by 
someone who doesn't understand HTML.++

If this were a commercial product or corporate external page, another
possible reason would be an edict from the marketing department that the
page must look glossy on modern browsers.  (One expression I have heard is
the 80/20 rule - you aim for the product to work with 80% of the market and
don't put effort into supporting the remaining 20%.  In this sort of
case, glossiness is considered more important than function.**)


Note that, even for a glossy appearence, you need more than just a list
of letters for tables to be needed to give adequate physical layout 
control.  As an example might be if the letters where displayed as bit-
mapped graphics in the GUI version

> Others on campus tell me we need a lynx that is setup with a "table"
> capability to get this horizontal display.

Putting tables into Lynx is non-trivial.  For a start, you will probably 
need to add horizontal scrolling, but the main problem is that tables 
can't be formatted in one pass without lookahead, because you can't work
out the size of the columns until you have scanned the whole table (Look
at a GUI browser rendering a table on anything but the fastest link - it
will render up to the start of the table, then stall until it has retrieved
the  whole table from the web site).  Lynx uses a one pass renderer with
no significant lookahead; someone is going to have to find time to 
re-write it before there is full support for tables.


** I'm fighting my own losing battle on this.  I think the best I'll
manage is a basic HTML fallback version, but there is a strong possibility
that funding will not be provided for this unless and until we start
getting complaints from significant numbers of customers. I'm about the
only person involved who does care about text mode and the true spirit
of HTML.  The marketing belief is that we we need all the gloss from lots
of image buttons and tables for layout to maintain a competitive edge and,
in some cases, to successfully compete against in house developments
using IDC or ASP.

++ This is also a factor for commercial page developers - businesses don't
want to spend time on learning, if they think that there is an alternative
which allows anyone who can type to create pages, they will go for it - you'd
be surprised how many people get by with word processors without understanding
how to use them, but just manipulating them so the result appears right on the
screen.
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