Re: lynx-dev Tables in Lynx

[Klaus Weide]

On Tue, 15 Jun 1999 address@hidden wrote:
> On Tue, 15 Jun 1999, Klaus Weide wrote:
> >I am still bewildered that not more people are trying the scripts
> >in the TABLES section in
> >
> >   Linkname: Patches and plugins for Lynx
> >        URL: http://www.crl.com/%7Esubir/lynx/patches.html
> >
> >This indicates to me that there isn't THAT much SERIOUS demand for table
> >support.
> 
> This shows that I am really not a Lynx expert.. Which, if any, of these
> options will give the user a single user interface, and not require
> them to do a lot of extra work to get something to happen?

The thing is, you don't NEED to be a Lynx expert in order to play around
with some external script.  You could be a perl expert, a sh expert, a
C expert,... or just a perl beginner, a sh beginner, a C beginner,...

> My first _guess_ is at most the proxy will.  External requires you to go to 
> the link and hit ".", right?  More work...

If everyone that potentially could improve the script options asks for
a perfect interface first, we have a chicken-and-egg problem.  If
really that may folks want table formatting, at least some of them
should be willing to do a little extra work.  If an external solution
turns up that does the job well, there will be an incentive to make it
easier to invoke it.  That incentive isn't there if nobody uses external
scripts anyway.

And come on, going to the link and hitting "." isn't that much work...
(assuming it can be done that way).

> While I very strongly agree with the "keep UNIX programs as small as possible
> and reuse other programs for some parts" philosophy, it seems to me that 
> having Lynx do tables well _is_ within the 'job' of a web browser, so 
> anything that requires the user to manually call (or quit) external programs 
> shouldn't be necessary..

It may be within the job of a web browser, but the world is not perfect...

> Now, if there comes to a point when the table 
> support is "as good as it's going to get" within Lynx itself, but it's still
> possible to use an external program for an even better representation, 
> now that's reasonable..  But from a first pass, it seems to me that Lynx 
> shouldn't _require_ external programs to render pages decently.

"Shouldn't require" - in an ideal world maybe, but working with what we have
got now may be more productive.  Instead of waiting for someone to put the
"decent" table support into lynx, and waiting... and waiting...

   Klaus