Re: lynx-dev TRST : the next step

[Philip Webb]

991117 Klaus Weide wrote: 
> Someone should implement full table support ... for non-simple tables.

we agree!

> The presence of TRST doesn't change this.  It isn't step-by-step improvable
> into full table support - at least *I* don't know how.
> If you need support for table cells with arbitrary multiline contents
> -- some of the tables you are dealing with really seem to require that --
> the "simple" idea just isn't a very good starting point.

accepting that point, most of my earlier suggestions become irrelevant.

PW> i hope you are realising from my example (ocaa)
PW> that tables can be a central part of useful real-life documents,
PW> not just for people who watch football (grin at KD).
 
> Well, somehow football sites seem to manage to produce better Web pages
> than the OCAA. In spite of all the financial support by AES Kingston Inc,
> Canadian Niagara Power, Commission for Environmental Cooperation etc etc.

ok, i see your (implied smile), but it's much easier for the NFL:
each row in their tables contains a few small decimal numbers
& the tables are predictable decade after decade;
a scholarly paper on the economics of the electricity industry contains
one-off tables with much messier data & labelling.

> TH vs TD should not make a big difference ...

no, it doesn't in general, but ...

> ... I am surprised replacing TD with TH would improve your examples.

... in these cases the header cells were very long.
 
PW> the <TD> & <TH> tags contain attributes WIDTH="n%" :
PW> can't TRST use these to wrap headings/numbers which exceed those limits?
> The problem is in your words "i'll wrap": TRST code itself cannot wrap.

rather than going on discussing what TRST might do,
i'll accept your account that it's very limited in scope.

> Since you are testing external scripts anyway... Have you tried
> any of the stuff at http://www.crl.com/%7Esubir/lynx/patches.html recently?
 
a quick look suggests there's nothing there i couldn't do with awk.
the message by FM 9609 has nothing to say (not his fault):
i don't know why Subir refers to it.
in any case, his document is fast becoming out-of-date.

so i'll try to suggest what Lynx might do with tables in another message.

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