Re: LYNX-DEV mail

[Hiram Lester, Jr.]

On Sat, 16 Nov 1996, David Combs wrote:

> > From address@hidden Fri Nov 15 17:24:08 1996
> > Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 18:52:38 -0500
> > From: address@hidden (Larry W. Virden, x2487)
> > 
> > If you configure userdefs.h appropriately (and I think it's the default),
> > then lynx looks at the MAIL variable for changes.
> 
> Thank god, it is also in lynx.cfg.

Yes, amazing how much of this stuff is documented if we'd just RTFM. :)  I
do it too. :)

> SUGGESTION: we GET RID of "lynx.cfg", and rename
> it ".lynxrc".  
> 
> THEN I am not sure of what to do:
> 
> . Have the user insert a "source /usr/local/.lynxrc" as
> first stmt in HIS .lynxrc,
> 
> . Or have that automatically happen (not the insertion,
> the reading of it).  But that allows less flexibility --
> 
> I vote for having the explicit statement.

Not gonna happen.  At least not that way.  Fote can explain for himself
why getting rid of lynx.cfg is a bad idea.  I think most of it has to do
with security issues...

Extending .lynxrc to encompass the elements in lynx.cfg (or at least more
of them) is a definite possiblity, and parsing the system-wide file first
and then the user's local file is what's being done now and what all of
shells do (/etc/profile then ~/.profile for sh-style shells, the order
varies on csh-style shells depending on how it was compiled, but the files
are /etc/csh.login, /etc/csh.cshrc, ~/.login, ~/.cshrc + any shell
specific ones like ~/.tcshrc, ~/.kshrc, etc.).

You definitely will NOT see the system-wide lynx.cfg over-ridden except
with an explicit -cfg or LYNX_CFG variable.  If the sys-admin changes
something, then you'll miss it.

I'm sure some of these things could be moved into .lynxrc without waiting
for better O)ptions processing...

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

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