lynx-dev TRST & centering (was: dev.13 progress...)

[Klaus Weide]

On Wed, 20 Oct 1999, Kim DeVaughn wrote:

> Heh.  I couldn't wait to try out KW's TRST table stuff, so I grabbed
> the patch ... seems to apply/build OK on FreeBSD 2.2.8-STABLE.
> 
> And a great big THANK YOU go to Klaus ...!

I am glad you like it :)

> I can actually make use of some of the stat/standings/score tables,
> that sports-related sites are fond of putting up (see a couple of
> examples below ... the difference is as night is to day).
> 
> So my initial reaction is pretty much one of elation (though with all
> of KW's caveats/etc in his README comments, I'm sure that there will
> be room for improvements down the line ... but for now, WOW!)

I may be overcautious, sometimes (he said, cautiously).

> One option that I would like to see already ... :-) ...:
> 
> Right now it seems like any table that is processed by the TRST code,
> is centered on the screen (as below).  

Not really - your second example wasn't.

I try to align the table "as a whole" according to either
  - the TABLE's ALIGN= attribute (if present), or
  - the line alignment that would be in place surrounding the
    table, according to the "normal" lynx alignment treatment.

I changed behavior to the above shortly before making the patch,
it isn't much tested; if you find a discrepancy between the intent
and actual behavior, please let me know.

> Would it be possible to make
> that optional ... I'd much prefer having the resulting output left
> justified?

Generally I would prefer to do let lynx do what the markup says, as much
as we can make sense of it...  A new option to modify centering as a
whole seems just too much micro management.

For more general (and more complete) control whether centering etc. should
be honored, modifying the stylesheet should be the way to go.
(DefaultStyle.c; open it up for the user to modify at runtime, i.e. invent
an interface (stylesheet language, subset of CSS?), and see how far that
gets us...)

Hower, there *is* something in she SH_EX code to control table centering,
even with a key command for toggling.  I haven't tested that at all.
If you want some "suppress table centering" functionality now, you could
compile with SH_EX, or (possibly better) un-SH_EX the relevant code
sections.

As it is now, the ignore-centering setting of the SH_EX code will be
ignored if TRST handles the table.  (Look in HTML.c under the first 
'case HTML_TABLE:' in HTML.c.)  In other words, it only suppresses
centering if "LYNX minimal table support" is in effect.  This seemed
to make the most sense to me, under the assumption that the ignore-
centering is there in the first place only because centering makes
some tables worse *with LMTS*.  Which would not apply for TRST-handled
tables.

You or the SH_EX author may disagree...
We don't have options for suppressing center in general, or to ignore
right-alignment.  So I don't really see why there needs to be something
special for tables, at least when they are rendered in tabular form.


   Klaus