Re: lynx-dev patch that allows text inputs to be non-sticky

[Klaus Weide]

On Wed, 28 Jul 1999, Heather wrote:

> The real effect is whether a form on this page is "live" -- that is, wandering
> down the page drops into the fields, or it (with this patch, as once upon a 
> time it usually?) doesn't.  I can even imagine an intermediate state being 
> introduced at some later point.  
> 
> Does this only affect text inputs?  I wouldn't mind being able to skip over
> an entire form, including its radio bubbles and others - in fact that could 
> be handled as jumping down to wherever the </FORM> was found... (I wonder how
> it would handle borken pages with no close FORM tag?) 

That would be a completely different feature, and probably not very
useful for FORM in the general case.  A key for "going to the next Hn
heading" would probably be more useful, and about as difficult, but useless
for the may pages that don't use <Hn> in a logical way.

There are many theoretical "go to the next X" key commands that could
sometimes be useful, none of them so generally useful that it would be
worth starting to assign keys to them, IMO.  And one for X == <FORM> or
X == </FORM> would be among the less useful ones.

[ Maybe I snipped too much - it wasn't clear to me which of the snipped
text is relevant to the following ]

> We really would be making the form modal at this point.  

Could you please give a definition for "modal"?

I have seen the term, have kind of a fuzzy understanding of it, but
it doesn't seem to match your use.  (According to my fuzzy understanding,
all lynx user interaction is "modal".)

> (Here's that
> intermediate state already :> )  So same option name as suggested above, 
> (ACTIVE_TEXTINPUT or ACTIVE_FORM) YES/NO upgraded to 
>        MODAL           fields "sticky" - act like editor, not like lynx.
>                        (pls make sure it's documented how to leave the field!)

I don't understand what this means.  "Act like an editor" - in which respect?

>        INPUT           (default) as they behave in release versions now.
>        SKIP            fields are not considered worthy of stopping at.
>                        They are still painted as plaintext.
> 
> Vlad >  And what those type of textinputs mean, can anyone explain:
>      > 
>      >  F_TEXT_TYPE         seems only 1 line of text
>      >  F_TEXT_SUBMIT_TYPE  ?
> 
> Is this different from the submit button?

As an example, go to <http://www.freshmeat.net/>.  Move to the
only input field, type "lynx" then enter.  "It submits", although
there is no submit "button".

Incidentally, this field also shows the effect of highlight(ON)
as a sometimes visible flicker, when moving onto the field.
(It may only be noticeable because I have changed COLOR:6 to use
a different background from that for COLOR:0 and COLOR:1; I have
   COLOR:0:black:white
   COLOR:1:blue:white
   COLOR:6:lightgray:red
using slang.

   Klaus