Re: now 2.7.1ac-0.36 (was Re: LYNX-DEV Request) (fwd)

[Foteos Macrides]

"Jim Spath (Webmaster Jim)" <address@hidden> wrote:
>I'm forwarding a thread amongst several developers to the main list to get
>this to a wider audience.  Klaus has included the pop-up code that Fote
>wrote in the options screen.
>
>These options pop up for me:
>[ L F C K N I U ]
>These don't (binary choices do not popup):
>[ E D B P S O G H V M T @ A ]
>
>I built a version using ncurses (4.1) under NetBSD, and the colors don't
>follow the arrow when moving among choices, i.e., the gray highlight for
>the current selection stays on the previous selections.  This is on an
>xterm screen.
>[... appended copies of private discussions ...]

        Thank you for helping to promote discussions about Lynx development
publicly in the archived lynx-dev list rather than in private, undocumented
groups (subject to mis-perception by some as cabals :).

        For about a week now, nothing will build properly with curses on
Scott's SPARC, I suspect due to messed up system headers from an ncurses
installation, which also messed up the headers for it's native curses
library.  I sent Scott a message about this, but perhaps waited too long.
Aside from some bad autoconf/#ifdef'ing in the development code (see below),
the Lynx code sets build and work fine with the (so-called "experimental" :)
slang library, but it's a problem for anyone trying to compile and link any
curses-based application (including the vanilla Lynx v2.7.1) on Scott's
SPARC.

        When I do just "configure" and then "make generic", for using the
native "solaris2" curses package with the -36 development code set, I get
an unresolved global error for mousemask, which appears to be an ncurses
library function or macro.  That means NCURSES_MOUSE_VERSION got defined
when it should not have during the autoconf.  If I fix that up via a
temporary hack in LYCurses.c, I can get -36 built, but the character
attribute handling is messed up (again, I suspect due to messed up system
headers).  When a color terminal is used, you'd expect that to be messed
up too.

        Hiram raised this issue a while ago, but it is yet to be addressed.
The autoconf is checking system capabilies, and setting up the build solely
based on those, without also providing a means for taking into account
lesser terminal capabilities at run time.  You see the consequences of this
(probably unwitting) change in design principles most dramatically in the
case of color handling.  If the system has color curses capability, then
the image will be built with that capability, and if you invoke that image
without a color terminal, you're up the creek without a paddle.  Back when
John did the original slang port, he included the -color switch to address
this problem (which I agree should also be in the options menu, now that so
many, but not all, Lynxers have color terminals).  But there's nothing of
that sort, nor effective automatic handling of this at run time, in the
color curses port.  Moreover, it has messed up the situation for slang,
so that if you connect with a non-color terminal, you don't get reverse
for the statusline messages even with a slang built image and the -color
switch not set.

        The good news is that the popup stuff was merged essentially as is
into LYOptions.c, and if I do a temporary hack to fix up the bad statusline
handling, and then use "configure --with_screen=slang", the popups work
as in the fotemods with proper character attribute handling, so I suspect
the problems you describe will go away when the curses color port is thought
through and fixed up (plus whatever got messed up on Scott's SPARC should
be fixed).
                                Fote

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