Re: lynx-dev TEXTAREA (was Re: LYNX-DEV Using Lynx woth web "forums")

[Jacob Poon]

On Fri, 24 Apr 1998, David Hardy wrote:

> address@hidden (Larry W. Virden) wrote:
> 
> > The point of concern is that lynx implements a form's textarea specfications
> > as the maximum number of rows (and columns?  I forget the status of
> > this question) rather than as the minimum.
> > 
> > The problem of course is how do we in a text window implement textarea
> > in such a way that one can _leave_ the textarea.  Any control
> > character chosen means that character can not easily be used within
> > the textarea itself.
> > 
> > I wonder if the tab key might be able to be used to indicate that one
> > wants to move from the textarea to the next field on the page (assuming
> > there is another place on the page to which one can move...)
> 
> Another possibility is to use a special character to introduce a
> function, preferably one that's not commonly used in input into a text
> area. For example, if \ were the special character then \ followed by
> anything other than another \ could mean 'do the associated function'
> (for example, \ followed by left-arrow would mean 'back out to the
> next higher link') while \\ would mean 'put a \ in the text area'.
> This is similar to the trick used by the C language in strings to
> introduce control characters.

I wouldn't go for any keystrokes that aren't start with a Ctrl- modifier. 
In this case I would vote for ^C or ^X for leaving TEXTAREA.  (^C is used
in UNIX (and DOS in lesser extent) to interrupt process, ^X is exit for
pico.)