Re: LYNX-DEV comment -- drowning in information

[Al Gilman]

  Subject: LYNX-DEV comment -- drowning in information
  From: VaX#n8 <address@hidden>

[...]
  But while upgrading from Lynx 2.4.2 to 2.6, I found myself
  confused when trying to decide if I needed to keep local
  modifications to particular files, or if there was a new
  mechanism for achieving my goals that was cleaner and/or more
  flexible.  Installing lynx is no small task...
[...]
  I know, I know, put my time where my mouth is.
[...]
                  However, I _will_ be compiling something for installers
  as I work on it tonight.
  
  I am not on lynx-dev, so keep me in any replies.

[Al, here...]
1. Thanks for sharing your notes with me.

2. I think that the documents available to people who are going to 
install Lynx could be approved on.

3. As for the present LaTeX document, can't you tell LaTeX to
orient the table in Landscape orientation?  I think that it would
fit that way.  It would be good to have this docment available
to others; probably via the "drafts" section at Lynx links.  Even
in .ps or .tex and .ps forms for now.

4. To HTML-ize the information, which I heartily recommend, I would
give up on the table and use nested lists, somewhat on the order
of:

  generic form:
        <behavior controlled> can be controlled by
                <command> in the <context>
                ...
                <command> in the <context> 

  example instance:
        Forms with ACTION=POST will be resubmitted or not controlled by
                'X' as a keystroke command
                resubmit_posts on the command line
                ALWAYS_RESUBMIT_POSTS in lynx.cfg
                ALWAYS_RESUBMIT_POSTS in userdefs.h

In an HTML document, each such entry in this summary list could
be linked to a specific target where that control is discussed in
the documentation of that context.

5. [Literate Programming] Eventually it would be good to turn the
"self-documenting" code inside out, so that rather than embedding
the documentation in the code as comments, the code is embedded in
the document with some simple conventional mark that makes for
easy extraction.  The <CODE> container comes to mind.  This would
let the documentation link to other documents, if the enclosing
document were in HTML.  This is most critical for items such as
lynx.cfg and userdefs.h where the comments are a critical part
of the documentation, and as you pointed out it is necessary to
walk back and forth among different files to get the story straight.

In summary:  It's a worthy project.  It will take some more work.
If you can swallow the idea of replacing the table with a list
structure it's a Small Matter of Programming.

--
Al Gilman

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