Re: LYNX-DEV Development code ac-28 comments

[T.E.Dickey]

> Ok, I finally got a chance to try out the development code on a platform
> other than Win32. :)  Here are some comments.
> 
> 1. If ncurses is found, it should be used as a default instead of curses. 
If ncurses is installed as the default curses, you don't afaik, need the
option (if not, that's a bug).  You use options to look for the non-default
behavior (otherwise we'll get into a discussion of what should be done if
the configure script looks around & finds both ncurses & slang installed ;-).

> My reasoning is that autoconfigure is supposed to make it easier, but on
> the bazillion Linux systems which have ncurses installed as their default
> curses, you MUST use 'configure --with-screen=ncurses' to get a valid
> build.  I tried this on two different Linux distributions with various
> results.  Using just 'configure' on a recent Red Hat system here at school
> (with ncurses 1.9.9e) bombed during the 'configure' (which was fine). 
> Using just 'configure' on Slackware 3.1 at home (with ncurses 1.9.9e, now
> 4.1) went all the way through the configure, and compiled until it got to
> the linking phase and then bombed out.  A *LOT* of wasted time on that
> one.
I built against bsd4.4, ncurses 4.1, 1.9.9e, 1.9.4, 1.8.7, and slang.
(Again, I'd like the details so I can accommodate whatever you're running into)
 
> 2. I built a non-styles version on the Red Hat system and the colors were
> really strange.  I presume that is the bug mentioned previously with wrong
> colors on 1.9.9e and that if I had built a non-styles version on my
> Slackware system after upgrading it to 4.1 I wouldn't have seen this.
probably.
 
> 3. I finally built a color-styles version after being dissatisfied with
> the above... and since I wanted to try it...  What can I say, but "Nifty!"
> This is definitely cool!
it is kind of cute (but it needs more work).
 
> 4. There should be a way to disable color and use the mono styles if the
> termcap says it's a color terminal, but it's really not.  I think the
it's doable (tin-unoff does this)

> vt100 one on linux defaulted to color.  Maybe there is one for mono only?
(afaik, the vt100 descriptions don't have color, simply because vt100's don't
do color)

> Also, is there anyway to enable color if it's not in the termcap?  I'm
no (unless you fall back upon a hardcoded scheme such as implemented by slang)

> thinking that the answer may be no since the termcap would also tell how
> to use those colors...
 
> 5. Also, I experienced a duplicatable crash at www.tv1.com on both
> binaries I tried (both done with 'configure --with-screen=ncurses
> --with-color-style=ncurses').  I was unable to duplicate the crash with
> trace mode on.  I went to 'member listings' and it loaded the page and
> sometime during the rendering process it core dumped.  When I turned trace
> mode on, it displayed the first line or two and just stopped.
I'll take a look the next time I've a debug-version built (I was going to
work on the remaining dozen targets in the makefile).
 
> 6. Speaking of trace mode, when I turned on trace logging with '-tlog', it
> still spit out some of the color-styles stuff to the screen even though it
> didn't spit out all the rest of the trace stuff.
ok.
 
> 7. Also, the recent discussion of popups with fotemods also applies to
> this.  Popups do not disappear as they should after selecting an item.
> Again, this was with both ncurses 1.9.9e and 4.1.
I've lost track of this one - my impression was that it wasn't an ncurses-
specific problem.
 
> Anyway, those are my comments and observations.  Keep up the good work.
> It's looking really cool!
> 
>    +------------------------------------+-------------------------------+
>    | Hiram W. Lester, Jr.               | E-Mail: address@hidden    |
>    | Computer Science                   | Home page:                    |
>    | Middle Tennessee State University  |   http://pobox.com/~hwlester/ |
>    +------------------------------------+-------------------------------+
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-- 
Thomas E. Dickey
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http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey
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