Re: LYNX-DEV help: finally!

[Personal]

Since development moved to my site here, I haven't been test building Lynx
very often. Finally, I decided to see how the prerelease code worked for 
install. I looked through userdefs.h and only made two changes (I used to
make a dozen or so) and then while going through lynx.cfg, I decided to back
out the two changes in userdefs.h anyway.

I would suggest that at some point, it might be nice to list the reasons (or
at least some of them) that a person might need to modify userdefs.h for, and
then basically tell installers that they shouldn't touch it unless they need
to do one or more of these things. I would like to see even fewer reasons to
hand edit lynx.cfg. One thought I had is to allow a second file, perhaps named
sitelynx.cfg that contains lynx.cfg stuff to override lynx.cfg. That way, I
can glance through lynx.cfg to see if there is new stuff (which should be 
flagged as new or changed) and add any settings for that stuff in my 
sitelynx.cfg file and leave the lynx.cfg unaltered. Also, since compiling/
installing lynx would not write the sitelynx.cfg file, most users would not
have to change, alter, recreate, or otherwise mess with it after the first 
time except to take advantage of different features than previously used.

As an example, the changes that I made to lynx.cfg are less than two dozen 
lines that I had in my last several versions as well. If I could dump them 
into a sitelynx.cfg file, I would likely not have to modify them again for
several versions unless someone thinks up some nifty new optional feature I
want to play with (such as RP giving us a working styles modification).

In fact, some such settings (like LOCALHOST_ALIAS, LOCAL_DOMAIN,NNTPSERVER,
PRINTER, DOWNLOADER, etc., should be specifiable in a file that acts as input
to configure (siteconf.in or some such) since they are part of the environment
that configure is figuring out to build lynx.

Hey, I am certainly not the crack config programmer that Tom is, but maybe
some of my ideas, when run through other minds, might make sense to add.

Oh, one note, I did a make install, and then a make install-help, and to my
frustration, I noted that a sed script took my carefully crafted HELPFILE
URL (http://www.slcc.edu/lynx2-8/lynx_help/lynx_help_main.html) and changed
it to a file://localhost/usr/local/lib/... URL. The lynx2-8 directory being 
one I was going to create to hold these files, assuming that since the 
machine's primary task is as a web server, that unless something was 
drastically wrong, the http server better be running and reachable, and that
such a URL was therefor of potential use to others (I still have 2-5, 2-6, 
2-7, and 2-7-1 help files in similar locations). Now, perhaps I didn't look
well enough, (and I certainly haven't listened well enough here to have
missed it), but it never occured to me that it would override my URL, change
it, and install them elsewhere.

Scott

PS I tried the SSL patch on a copy of the release code and it failed. Just
thought I would mention it.

Scott McGee: Salt Lake Community College Webmaster | When in danger,
___________________________________________________| or in doubt,
Email: address@hidden (Scott McGee)         | run in circles,
Web:   http://www.slcc.edu/infotech/webmaster.html | scream and shout.
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My opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the College. Trust me!