Re: LYNX-DEV fotemods.zip update

[Foteos Macrides]

Ismael Cordeiro <address@hidden> wrote:
>On Wed, 18 Jun 1997, Foteos Macrides wrote:
>
>> >Lynx has a strange behaviour when the search string is the first or the
>> >last word of a link. Go to
>> >
>> >http://www.cam.org/~ismael/links.html
>> >
>> >Search for "audio" and see what happens with the first and last character of
>> >"audio" when it's the first or the last word, respectively, of a link.
>> 
>>      The first and last characters of the link name always have the
>> attributes of a current link when you make the link current,
>> intentionally, as explained in the FOTEMODS file:
>> 
>> 1997-06-12
>> * Tweaks of the 1997-06-04 mods for restoring emphasis of WHEREIS search
>>   targets in link names when they are changed to the current link or again
>>   made non-current.  When the link is made current, the first and last
>>   characters of the link name never are emphasized, so they'll retain the
>>   attributes/color for the current link, and the user can see (if sighted)
>>   that the link was made current.  [...]
>
>Maybe with slang, color, etc. it's necessary but compiled with plain
>"solaris2" and "freebsd-ncurses" and using a VT100 terminal emulator I see
>no need for the first or the last characters of a link containing a search
>string to be different of the other characters of the string. Let's see what
>happens. VT100 can display text as plain, bold, reversed, underlined or a
>mix of these. Links without any emphasis in the HTML appear as bold and the
>current link as reversed, which makes a good contrast and makes easy to see
>which is the current link. When you search a string it is displayed as
>bold-reversed-underlined (underlined is hard to see when mixed with
>reversed) which contrasts with the reversed of the rest of the link. When
>that link becomes the current one the search string remains as
>bold-reversed-underlined and the rest of the link becomes reversed. This
>also gives a good contrast which makes easy to see which link is the current
>one. This means that the way it is now doesn't make the current link to be
>more visible. [...]

        You are speculating from an arm chair.  I had it, originally, the
way you're speculating that it should be, and changed it when I discovered
-- empirically -- that when the WHEREIS target encompasses the first
and/or last character of the link being made current, if you don't give
them the attributes of an un-emphasized current link, you can't tell where
the current link actually begins and/or ends (you could know where it
begins by turning show_cursor on, but still wouldn't know where it ends
if the emphasis overlaps the last character).


>> >Another "restore the emphasis" problem can be seen at
>> >
>> >http://www.flora.org/lynx-dev/html/month0697/
>> >
>> >As you move cursor to another link the emphasis of the previous link is
>> >lost.
>> 
>>      I can't reproduce that on Scott's solaris or on VMS.  Perhaps you
>> need to spell out more completely what you are doing to create the
>> problem.
>
>I'm doing nothing to create the problem. It's Lynx that creates it... ;-)
>
>Let's see... When I first get Lynx-Dev at Flora on the screen the subjects
>of messages are displayed as bold-underlined and when I make one of them the
>current link it becomes reversed. When I move to the next link the previous
>one becomes bold instead of bold-underlined. That's what mean by lost
>emphasis. If I use ^L or go to the next page and go back to the previous
>page the bold-underlined is restored.

        Thanks for making it clear that the problem had nothing to do with
WHEREIS searches.  It's due to those links being encased in STRONG.  Now
that the code is adding or subtracting attributes for Unix FANCY_CURSES
as for VMS curses and slang, it similarly needs to restore the underline
attribute when the link is made non-current and is in an underline context.

                                Fote

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 Foteos Macrides            Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research
 address@hidden         222 Maple Avenue, Shrewsbury, MA 01545
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