lynx-dev Re: Final dev15 patch for TEXTAREA edit feature (I hope)

[Kim DeVaughn]

On Fri, Feb 05, 1999, Leonid Pauzner (address@hidden) said:
|
| Thanks for your work, looks very nice.
|
| But:

There is *always* a "but", isn't there ... :-) ...


| >  3. Hitting the reset buton is now handled properly WRT the "old"
| >     text in expansion lines (now *always* empty).
| The same thing when I remove several lines with the editor:
| I got a bunck of blank lines at the bottom of textarea.
| Think the textarea #lines should be restored properly
| (decrease #lines the same way as it was increased
| according the text received from the editor).

Yeah ... currently, TEXTAREA expansion is a one way street, with no
provision to shrink it back down to the original size, nor to remove
any trailing blank lines/anchors as a result of subsequent editor
invocations.

I considered doing that, but the one thing I need to solve before it
could be implemented, is that of cursor movement to a specific line
within the TEXTAREA.  That functionality isn't *required* for expansion,
since the cursor can quite happily be left on the original line, but
for shrinking, the cursor *must* be moved to some line within the area
that remains after shrinking (when the cursor's anchor was quite likely
yanked out from under it).

It will also be a bit more of a PITA to update [tag] position offsets,
since the anchor struct is (currently) a singly linked-list, and can
only be naturally traversed in the expansion direction.

Anyway, I'll keep it in mind, but the cursor repositioning problem is
the one thing that *must* be solved first.


| >  4. Attempting to edit (^Ve) a TEXT field (not a TEXTAREA), is now
| >     blocked, with the user getting an error msg.
|
| It is not clear whether EDITTEXTAREA key still may be defined from lynx.cfg
| of it is hardcored with EDIT key?

Currently, EDITTEXTAREA is still a bindable function, but it is redundant
since whatever key that is bound to the EDIT function is hardcoded to
perform that function when in a TEXTAREA (in addition to invoking the
editor wherever else it is valid to do so).

I was planning on removing EDITTEXTAREA as a separate function after a
release or two, but have left it in for now,as a "fallback" in case we
find a reason to keep the EDIT function separate for some reason (though
I cannot think of any reason to do so ATT).

In short, don't use EDITTEXTAREA unless you can think of that good reason
for doing so (which I'd like to hear about), as it should be disappearing
in the not too distant future.

/kim