Re: new version of structured description ... patch [lynx-dev]

[Vlad Harchev]

On Wed, 19 May 1999, Michael Warner wrote:

> On or about 19 May, 1999, Henry Nelson
> <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> > Before any kind of vote people need time to try things out.  A
> > lot of people on this list cannot just drop everything, apply
> > every patch that comes along and thoroughly evaluate it.  You
> > can gather from the messages that only a handful of people have
> > had time to take a look; others are not yet convinced that it
> > is even worth their time to check it out.  For a work the size
> > you are proposing it is going to take time for the vote to come
> > in no matter how the voting is done.
> 
> In this case, the layers of patch and counter-patch seemed
> especially convoluted, as did the discussion.  Since I have no
> technical expertise to contribute, I more or less waited for
> things to settle out before I investigated.  Now that Vlad's work
> is (I think?) mostly stabilized, is there any chance of a brief
> summary and pointer to the "evaluation copy", if I haven't just
> overlooked one that's already been sent?  OK, I see the URL
> for the patch in a recent message, so how about just a few
> sentences to sum up what it does?
> 
> I'm only vaguely aware of what the feature would offer, and
> haven't formed any opinion of whether it's something I'd use.  As
> Henry suggests, I'm probably not the only one.

 Yes, I consider it stable.
 This patch adds files to $(helpdir)/lynxcfg - ie a directory called lynxcfg
appears in the directory in which lynx_help_main.html is installed. There are
4 files in this directory:

 body.html ~192Kb - the htmlized description of lynxcfg settings
 alphatoc.html - alphabetical list of settings allowed in lynx.cfg 
 cattoc.html - list of settings allowed in lynx.cfg by category
 index.html  - a small file that contains links to cattoc.html and
                 alphatoc.html

 These 4 files are independant of the configuration settings, so they are
installed as is (ie they are not generated nor transformed at installation
time).
 I still suggest to add these 4 files to 2.8.2 (or at least add a link to them
in lynx_help_main.html (displayed at '?' command) and put them somewhere on
the inet).

 Here is a description of functionality that is added by modifying *.c files.
 File body.html contains a description of each setting allowed in lynx.cfg.
The description is based on the comments in lynx.cfg. Description of each
seting has link "View status of this setting" in the "Status" subsection.
The target URL of this link is LYNXSETTINGSTATUS://<setting_name> 

When user activates this link, internal lynx page appears, that tells the
following:
* Whether this setting is allowed for current configuration of lynx 
* Default value of this setting 
* Whether default value of this setting can be changed in 'userdefs.h' at
configuration time
* Type of this setting (scalar or list)
* Current value of this setting (the last value assigned to it if scalar and
all values assigned to it in all conifuration files if of list type)
* The trace of initialization of this setting - for each initialization of
setting the following is shown:
  1) file name (with link to it) where initialization happened
  2) line number
  3) text that was read from that line 

 I placed an "evaluation version" of those 4 files at 
            http://www.hippo.ru/~hvv/lynx/demo1
 In order to show the internal pages that are generated when user activates
LYNXSETTINGSTATUS:// url, I produced them (so they are specific to my
configuration of lynx) and placed them in the same directory, and they are
accessible through links "View status of this setting" in the subsection
"Status" of the description of each setting. Ie, to see the screen user will
see after applying entire patch for setting COLOR, visit
      http://www.hippo.ru/~hvv/lynx/demo1/COLOR.html 
Of course the file I placed is specific to my configuration of lynx. You can
browse screens for all 151 settings this way (I placed all 151 files).
 
>[...] 

 Waiting for a vote results :)
 Best regards,
  -Vlad