Re: [Lynx-dev] how to maximize client area???

[Chuck Martin]

On Wed, Feb 02, 2005 at 07:07:35AM -0500, address@hidden wrote:
> well, i deleted the 1st, thinking to let you have the last word, but ...

I wasn't trying to get the last word.  I just thought others might be
interested in what I had to say, and may want to comment on it.

> > Lynx is a web browser.  The defaults should be those
> > that help those of us who use it as a web browser.
> 
> the issue isn't defaults, but options: they're quite different.

My point is "Are more options necessary when there are easy ways to
do these things already?"  Especially if everyone who wants such an
option might have a different idea of what the additional option
should do based on their own use for that option.

> > Any other uses are the exception.
> > Those exceptions can generally be accomodated by a little scripting
> > using sed/awk/perl/shell/whatever-other-tools-you-may-find-useful.
> 
> are you seriously suggesting that people should learn Perl
> in order to e-mail news articles to their friends ??

No.  That was just one possibility, for those who already know Perl and
need it's power for what they want to do.  If I understand you correctly,
what you want could be very easily done with nothing more than sed.  Try
putting this in your lynx.cfg file:

PRINTER:Save left-justified text:sh -c "sed -e 's/^ *//' %s > lj.txt":TRUE

With that, you can just press P when you want to save a page with all text
left-justified (and select the appropriate option from the menu), and then
import the lj.txt file into whatever program you want to use it in.  Each
time you do that, the file lj.txt will be overwritten (I assume you don't
need it after you've done whatever you wanted it for).  If you don't want
that file hanging around afterwards, and would prefer to cut and paste
from the screen, use this instead:

PRINTER:Display as left-justified text:sh -c "sed -e 's/^ *//' %s | less":TRUE

I just tried both of these, so I know they work.

> > Some of my reasons for preferring Lynx have already been stated
> > by others who share my preference.  Others are my own reasons,
> > which I won't go into at the moment.
> 
> i'ld love to know which Internet sites you & the others visit.
> astronomy ?  archaelogy ?  Yahoo news ?  your local newspaper ?

Most non-commercial sites, and many commercial sites work fine.  Those
that don't are usually very graphics intensive, and I avoid them as much
as possible.

> just this week, i tried to access an article in Spectator (London),
> but its free (still just) sign-up has a 'go' javascript button:

I admit, javascript is annoying, and I'm seriously considering starting
to complain about those that use it.  Many of those that use javascript
use it to open a page in a new window, which I find annoying even with
a graphic browser.  If I want a page loaded in a new window, I can do it
myself, thank you.  Often, with Lynx, I can use G and cut and paste the
address in to avoid that problem.

Personally, I have a problem with javascript being so universally accepted
by the unwashed masses that commercial entities feel it's appropriate
to use it so extensively.  I disable it in all of my browsers that have
the capability on principle because I don't like the idea of running
programs from every unknown Tom, Dick, and Harry that puts up a web page.
I know that many people claim that it's safe, but I don't trust it, and
I will only enable it grudgingly if I really have to have access to a
web site that uses it, and I feel that the page is from a trusted source,
but even then I always feel I'm taking a risk.  Call me paranoid, but
when someone finds another hole in it to abuse, I'll probably be one of
the few people in the world that remain safe from whatever exploit they
find.

> have you heard about tabs ?  they make it possible to run down an index,
> send off for the stories, then read them in the order you choose,
> great eg for Linux Today: Lynx has no such device.

As someone else mentioned, the screen program does that nicely, and I
use it for that quite often.

> what do you spend your day doing ?  real-life work ?  scholarship ?
> or are you just a coder or sysadmin ?

I code only when necessary (to fix bugs or add features to programs that
are missing things I think would be useful).  Part of the reason I use
Lynx is because it makes much more efficient use of my time.  Not only
does the browser start up more quickly than any graphic browser (except
maybe Dillo), but pages load quicker and the vikeys option makes
navigation extremely fast.  I should point out that the start-up time is
very important to me because I don't spend my whole day browsing the web,
and when I want to go to a web site quickly, I don't like having to wait
for the browser to start up.

> > This is one of my pet peeves.
> > HTML was intended as a mark-up language, not a document layout language.
> 
> back around 1995, that was true.

It still is.  That's why CSS was invented.

> > Web page authors should be providing information
> > and let the end user decide what format is the most useful to him/her.
> 
> inevitably, they target the vast majority of users, who use GUI browsers.
> they lay out their material carefully with colors, shapes, frames etc,
> none of which comes thro' clearly in a purely text browser, however good.

IMHO, those pages almost invariably look cluttered and ugly.

> understanding the technical divisions of the HTML structure
> is quite different from understanding the content published by the author.

Understanding the technical divisions helps me to understand the content
better.  At least that's been my experience.

> > the vast majority of web page authors misunderstand the purpose of HTML,
> > and try to make it do something it was never designed to do,
> > which can only be done by abuse of elements such as TABLEs
> > and superfluous graphics such as spacer.gif
> > (a common "invisible" graphic used to position things).
> 
> everyone else is wrong & a tiny minority of Lynx users is right ... (sigh)

It's not just Lynx users.  The reason CSS was invented was to try to get
people to separate form from content, and get back to using HTML for the
purpose for which it was designed.  I've seen people on the net complain
that HTML is a poorly designed document layout language, and they're
entirely correct, because that's not what it was designed for.  If it
was, you wouldn't have to use invisible graphics to lay out your document
because the language would have provisions for doing that layout.

> perhaps you're just trying to be provocative & it's the end of my day,

No, I'm not trying to be provocative.  I just feel that things that can
be easily done without adding more features should be done without adding
more features.  Lynx is already very feature rich, and I think adding too
many unnecessary features makes it difficult to find the features you want
and need.  As I'm sure you're aware, feature creep can quickly lead to
bloat, and one thing we don't need in Lynx is bloat.

> but please try to understand that most of us use software to do things
> & don't have much time left over for programming, scripting or sysadmin.

As I said, I only program when necessary, and I think that things like
what you're asking can easily be handled by finding the proper forum and
asking "How can I ... ?", and someone can often provide you with a simple
solution that doesn't involve adding more features to a program (such as
the PRINTER lines I suggested above).

Chuck