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Re: lynx-dev [yet another] note on table rendering


From: Klaus Weide
Subject: Re: lynx-dev [yet another] note on table rendering
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 09:12:31 -0500 (CDT)

On Thu, 27 Apr 2000, pAb-032871 wrote:

> I've been reading previous notes about table rendering.  It got me
> started with a few questions, and some ideas.  Please note that I'm not
> a programmer, so this is all theory and not much concrete help.
> 
> I have learned a bit about the theory though.
>[snip] 
> Even if support for tables is never implemented, Lynx should learn how
> to handle the tags a little better.  

That was the idea behind adding better support for at least some kinds of
tables in 2.8.3.  And I tried to do it in a way that, I hope, won't get
in the way of any later, more complex, fuller table support.

Well, lynx has had *some* form of support for tables for a long time.
Maybe you could use the terms I used in
<http://lynx.isc.org/release/lynx2-8-3/docs/README.TRST>.

> For example, it could treat <TD>
> tags as <BR>, and <TR> as <P>.  

Lynx's Minimal Table Support = treat <TD> as ' ', treat <TR> as <BR>
(more or less).  That's in general (for "real" tables) much better than
your minimal proposal.

Btw you may want to read
   Linkname: TABLEs on non-TABLE Browsers
        URL: http://ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk/~flavell/www/tablejob.html

if you haven't come across it already.  Think about how the example(s)
would look if
 (a) lynx had absolutely *no* table support, or
 (b) if your minimal approach was implemented.

> This would be a great idea, even if
> nothing else in this message is.  In the same way, it could treat
> <TD ALIGN=[left/right/center]> as <BR CLEAR=[left/right/center]>  You've

Lynx doesn't anything with CLEAR attributes on BR.

I get the impression you are only thinking about "non-simple" tables (in
terms of the mentioned README.TRST), i.e. table cells containing whole
paragraphs & other blocks of text, and forget about the most simple "real"
tables.

> seen what some table-laden pages look like in Lynx. . .

When tables are used just for positioning and layout, I generally don't
miss seeing them.  Mostly only if some text mentions something silly like
"click the blahblah icon to the left" etc.

> Maybe the current version already does this.  I don't know because I'm
> using a v2.7.1 port.

I hope your new shell account will give you a chance to see 2.8.3 in
action soon. :)

Btw, I came across an example that shows how the TRST code (i.e., 2.8.3)
handles even some rather complex "simple" tables quite nicely:

   Linkname: Al's tricky table
        URL: http://ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk/~flavell/www/table-c3.html

The second, "here's what we came up with", is shown with all the alignments
right, it seems.  (There are some glitches when in TagSoup mode - not too
surprising.)

[ Most of the detailed ideas snipped - not that they are bad. ]

> Ignore Tables would be pretty much what you see now, [...]

Well, not exactly.

> If adding a horizontal scrollbar is a problem, [...]

Adding horizontal scrolling should be much simpler than any of the
complex table ideas.

   Klaus


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