Re: lynx-dev new version of structured description ... patch

[Vlad Harchev]

On Tue, 18 May 1999, Leonid Pauzner wrote:

> 16-May-99 17:06 Vlad Harchev wrote:
> >  The patch that integrates all modifications and that is ready for pre3 was
> > placed at
> 
> >   http://www.hippo.ru/~hvv/lynx/patch1.01.gz
> 
> >  It's slightly different from http://www.hippo.ru/~hvv/patch.gz in *.C code
> 
> I still think LYReadCFG.c became too complex to push it just now
> before the release. I mean an extended diagnostics for settings status> much 
> more information than we had on LYNXCFG:/ page and really important
> in some cases but probably not for everybody.

  As for inclusion - I don't want to ask or insist on including it - let other
lynx developes decide. If it won't be included, may be the clever idea will be
to add very limited support for LYNXSETTINGSTATUS:// - ie if user jumps to it,
the screen should appear that says that support for this URL is still being
developed/tested (rather than not supporting this url type at all - to allow 
current body.html with such urls to be valid for lynx). Or we can
integrate the patch, call support for this URL experimental, and disabled by
default by configure (and even make it enabled only if special run-time switch
for lynx (not configure) was specified).

 As for LYNXCFG:// page - my patch adds line tracking to do_read_cfg, so this
information can also be provided on LYNXCFG:// page

 As for contents - we can chose contents of the LYNXSETTINGSTATUS:// 
according to the default_user_mode -  current state is for
default_user_mode == ADVANCED.

> > (it absorbed small patches I posted, and some message strings were fixed), 
> > and
> > of course in body.html - with all problems reported by LP fixed.
> 
> few more:
> 
> 1) I cannot found an "INCLUDE" topic in body.html - it has no default value
>   but its syntax may be of interest for sure.
  
 OK, I'l write it (the description of extended INCLUDE syntax is present only
in CHANGELOG).

> 2) lynx_help/lynxcfg/*.html files can be referenced not only at
>   lynx_main_help.html but also at #lynx.cfg section of Users Guide.

 IMO lynx_help/lynxcfg/*.html are worth including in the pre5 even
without support for LYNXSETTINGSTATUS:// so lynx-devers and users will check
them.  They can be referenced in a lot of places in present *.html files.
 
> 3) many lines in body.html source begins with different offsets,
>   e.g. inside the same paragraph. IMHO it could be done by maintaining
>   'description' sections in plain HTML (in your body.in template),
>   leaving headers, 'default value' and 'status' sections to your scripts only.
>   In general, lynx users more comfortable with HTML than with hairy scripts.
>   (there will not be any problem until you maintain body.in, but in future?)

 As for future, I don't think syntax of body.in is so complex. I can describe
the syntaxt in more details. And cpp knoweledge is useful thing anyway :) As 
for scripts - seems that they are stabialized - they won't change 
signtifically.

 IMO it will be better to reformat *.html by some html beatifiers rather than
trying to do this by hand. Have anybody heard about such tools?
 I'm seriously thinking of writing a set of CPP macros that will generate
linuxdoc SGML DTD source from body.in - that can be converted to rtf (this
means inserted into MSWORD, MS Help format), latex (and to dvi and ps from it)
and to lyx. Those converted versions should be placed on lynx home page of
course.
 Independance of the markup language is a great thing. And if 'Description'
will be kept in html, then the body.in will be much larger and much more
difficult to maintain (from my POV) (reducing ablity to convert it to something 
else).

 Best regards,
  -Vlad