Re: LYNX-DEV suspending lynx

[Klaus Weide]

On Sun, 27 Oct 1996, Foteos Macrides wrote:

>                                         [...]  What's "built in"
> to the Lynx "distribution" is this statement in the PROBLEMS file:
> 
> Lynx PROBLEMS file.
> 
> Ideally you would never have to read this, but inevitably problems
> do arise.  As implementation and installation problems become known
> they will be outlined in this file.
> 
>     Control-Z on Unix can cause aberrant behavior.  If you encounter
>     problems, use -restrictions=suspend to disable it, and only '!'
>     for escapes to shell (on VMS control-Z is unconditional 'Q'uit,
>     with no attempt to suspend the Lynx process only temporarily).
> [...]
> 
> 
>       Anything that would involve any appreciable increase in
> Lynx memory requirements is wise to think about from a cost/benefit
> perspective.  If ^Z works for you, great!  If you experience aberrant
> behavior, is the added functionality of ^Z, relative to the spawns to
> shell ('!' with '$' a synonym on VMS) worth the cost?
> 
>       I didn't personally think that foreground/background hopping
> was worth the cost on VMS, but have no idea what the cost would be
> to make that reliable on Unix (or how to make it reliable 8-).
> 
>       Does it matter what Lynx is actually doing when you enter
> ^Z, or does it just work OK or not as a function of the Unix flavor?

Some data:

On Linux several versions of Lynx w/ several versions of slang have always
worked reliably w.r.t ^Z.  I use it all the time.  The only situation
I have found that something weird happens is when I interrupt a _child
process_ of Lynx with ^Z, for example a `less' viewer started from a
P)rint or D)ownload screen.  On resuming (with `fg'), Lynx and the child
both seem to come alive and compete for the screen and terminal, which
cann give very strange effects.  My solutions is that I just don't do
that.

On several ncurses versions (I didn't compile all of them, they include
one earlier character-style binary from Rob), Linux and SunOS, the problem
I observed was that Lynx stopped reacting to ^Z after some time.  No need
to disable it with -restrictions, since it was disabling itself...

  Klaus

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