Re: lynx2-8-2/lynx_help/lynx-dev.html

[David Woolley]

> 2. As all we know <ELEMENT> (e.g., <p>) marks the _start_ of an element
>    and even <p> is not considered to "close" an paragraph ;)

Yes it is, because the trailing tag is optional on P, but P is %block,
and not permitted within P, so will implicitly close the preceding P.

Note that HTML 4 strict doesn't allow text directly under BODY, and that
I believe the standardisation trend is away from omitted trailing tags, 
e.g. XML requires everything to be explicit.

> 
> 3. BANNER is not a valid element name.

I think it may well be valid in HTML 3.0.  However only Lynx and Arena support
this, as far as I know.   A similar result could be achieved with HTML4/CSS2,
but I don't know any browser that handles position:fixed yet - maybe IE5.

NB HTML 3.0 is not HTML 3.2; it was an attempt at a rational extension of
HTML whereas 3.2 is a fomalisation of Netscape HTML.

> +<blockquote>
>  [ <a href="http://www.flora.org/lynx-dev/html/";>Lynx-Dev Archive</a> |
>  <a href="about_lynx.html">About Lynx</a> ]

This is *not* a block quote.  The nearest equivalent to the intended
effect, in mainstream HTML, would be <DIV STYLE="position: fixed.....">**.
Blockquote is not a physical markup element meaning indent, it is a
logical markup element meaning use whatever rendering the user/user
agent/style sheet thinks is best for a multiline quotation.

> -</banner>
> +</blockquote>
>  
>  <h1><em>The Lynx Development Process</em></h1>
       ^^^^

You are overriding the style for heading level one, which should already
have a sensible style associated with it.  If it hasn't, fix the user
agent.  If you still think you know better, add style sheet support and
use a style sheet.  (I would probably have used H1 for the main page heading
and H2 in the current context - this makes sense if you assemble multiple
pages into book form.)

>  send e-mail to <a href="mailto:address@hidden";>&nbsp;address@hidden</a>
                                                     ^^^^^^
This serves no useful purpose and will appear as noise on older browsers,
including early versions of Lynx.

> +with only the following request in the body of your message:
> +<p>
> +&nbsp;&nbsp;subscribe lynx-dev (address)
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^
This would be a valid use of BLOCKQUOTE!  In default, anyone sending this
literally to the list server (i.e. with ISO 8859/1 non-breaking space
codes, or possibly even with leading normal spaces) can expect to have
the request ignored.  If you are using &nbsp; for any reason other than
to prevent a line wrap, you are probably abusing it.

Whether or not Lynx handles this sensibly, the specimen style sheet for
CSS2 would give exactly the same vertical spacing for BLOCKQUOTE as
for P, making the P's redundant (and in, any case, empty and therefore
ignorable).

> +&nbsp;&nbsp;subscribe lynx-dev (address)
                                  ^       ^

For at least the last 30 years, the convention has been to use square 
brackets for optional material, although even then Windows users might
well type the brackets.  The convention has also been to mark names
on variable parts with <...> although there is, I think, an HTML element
for the same purpose.

> @@ -87,7 +87,7 @@
>  For best results, subscribe as described above.

I would stress this a lot more; if they don't subscribe they will almost
certainly lose some of the replies because of the way Reply-To is used.

** It is easier to show styles inline like this, but, except to work round
browser bugs, I would always use a separate style sheet in the real document.