Re: LYNX-DEV blank page with 2.6

[Hiram Lester, Jr.]

On Fri, 25 Oct 1996, Foteos Macrides wrote:

>       Since there were several replies to this which continued the
> assumption that this might be a platform/flavor issue, let me stress
> that it is entirely a configuration issue on any platform/flavor.
> If is configured to use "valid" comment parsing, that entire document
> is an unended comment, and thus not displayed.
> 
>       The strong recommendation in lynx.cfg is to configure Lynx
> for "minimal" (invalid, Netscape-emulation) comment parsing. The
> "historical" comment parsing is too lax (emulates Netscape v1.x),
> in that Netscape "fixed" its comment parsing in v2.0, but regrettably,
> didn't bother to understand what a real "fix" would be.  Sigh...

To further elaborate, I had been building Lynx to use the same lynx.cfg
that is installed system-wide here at school, and the Lynx BINARY is set
up to use valid parsing.  Pages such as the one in question would not
display.

Just recently I decided to provide my own lynx.cfg from 2.6 with local
modifications added.  I just tried the page in question, and it displays
fine, so I assume that the "recommended" setting for is the setting in the
lynx.cfg in the distribution.  This was further confirmed by the fact that
turning on historical parsing says that minimal has been overridden.

To make a long story short, those for whom this is working correctly most
likely have recent lynx.cfg's installed with the "recommended" setting for
comment parsing.

I am a CI$ customer (although I NEVER use it), so we'll see if sending
them a message does any good.  I'll send them the URL about valid
comments.  I also need to send in a complaint about their Home Page
Wizard.  It puts paragraph tags around lists!

On a similar note, sometimes it DOES do some good to complain to
businesses about their pages.  Epic MegaGames (www.epicgames.com) changed
their page recently to have an imagemap and not much else on the main
page.  ARGH!  Anyway, I mailed them about it a few weeks ago suggesting
they use client side imagemaps (and sent sample HTML for such) and/or text
links for those clients that were hopelessly imagemap impaired. :)  I
never got a response, but when I checked it earlier today, the big image
map has been replaced ENTIRELY by a client-side image map (sorry older
browsers {g}), and there are text links below it.  There is a "toolbar"
below that which is set up as a combo server/client side map, but the
server side is broken. :)  That second map also has the IMG tag inside the
MAP.  I don't think that's valid, but Lynx handles it just fine. :)

Kinda warms the heart, eh? ;)  I took the tack in my message that
client-side maps were less taxing on their server.  My sample HTML *DID*
show them an image being used as both...  Anyway, I guess it's time for me
to send another letter thanking them and advocating the use of ALT tags in
IMG and AREA tags. :)

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

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