Re: LYNX-DEV Re: Setting up a fund for specific development?

[Rob Partington]

Andrew Kuchling wrote:
> 
>       As I see it, the central problem is lack of interest from
> technically capable people in improving Lynx.  Lynx is used by many
> Unix hackers because of its simplicity and speed, but few are
> interested in enhancing the program.  Is that because Lynx is already
> good enough for them, and missing things like table support aren't
> that critical?  Is it because of lack of awareness?  Is it because web
> browsers, like word processors, aren't exciting projects like kernels?
> (Maybe; other freeware browser projects such as Mnemonic also attract
> little interest.)

for me, at the moment, I'm very much hampered by having a very disorganised
life, and no time to work on lynx at work, like I was promised a year ago.

it's not lack of interest, really, because I've got reams and reams of paper
with designs and code fragments at home - it's lack of "oomph" in getting
started with what I want to do.

even so, I am now forcing myself to write code, and I've got a couple of example
programs running based on snippets of what I want to do.

> Then, tables really require several passes, to gauge the size of the
> cells, render them offscreen somehow, and then size the table
> accordingly, so Lynx's HTML parsing will really need a serious
> overhaul.  That's a lot of work, which no one has done, and no one
> seems really willing to do.

if you hold the HTML parse tree in memory, then you only need to "render"
the table once, then descend the tree calculating the size of each cell
and passing that up to the parent, which is basically what I'm working
on. 

this also has applications in other areas as well - if you hold the parse
tree in memory, and render it dynamically to the screen, then you get the
ability to change styles and the visibility of elements on the fly.

but this is not even pre-alpha work yet, so don't get too excited.
-- 
       Rob Partington / address@hidden / address@hidden
"We have come to the edge of a world of which we have no experience,
 and where all our preconceptions must be recast."
                             - D'arcy Thompson, 'On Growth and Form'