Re: lynx-dev table formatting (possible) solution

[Vlad Harchev]

On Mon, 7 Jun 1999, Philip Webb wrote:

> 990603??  Vlad Harchev wrote: 
> >> lynx is designed as a one-pass renderer, while tables require look-ahead.
> > May be one of the solutions can be the following:
> > lynx should still generate one-pass representation of the table as now
> > (with aggregating table data in some internal structures
> > in order to use these structures later for pretty drawing),
> > but provide a link near each table with text like
> >   "pretty view of this table".
> > When user references link, the nice table rendering is displayed
> > (only the rendering of this table, nothing else).
> > IMO this rendered version can be arbitrary wider than screen
> > (may be we can use curses' pads for scrolling -
> > they are very useful for this) - if so, table can be pretty rendered
> > since no width constraint remains.
>  
> that's the way to do it: feel encouraged to have a go at programming it.
> i download newspaper/magazine articles containing tables frequently
> & would welcome something which does basic row/column formatting:
> spilling off the screen is rarely a problem with numeric tables.

 Sorry, I don't have time to do this (at least till middle of july). But
w3m announced recently by Hiroyuki Senshu seems interesting. There is another
possible gross hack to achive relatively good table rendering - collect
table data while displaying them in one pass, then generate 'tbl' source, pass
the source through 'tbl', then through 'groff' and invoke 'less' (don't shure 
whether this will work with merged cells). They will automatically extend 
table width if it doesn't fit in screen. The major disadvantage - absense of
link in generated table.

>[...]

 Best regards,
  -Vlad