lynx-dev
[Top][All Lists]
Advanced

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: LYNX-DEV lynx2-6FM w. COOKIES


From: Andrew Kuchling
Subject: Re: LYNX-DEV lynx2-6FM w. COOKIES
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 14:57:23 -0500 (EST)

Foteos Macrides (address@hidden) wrote:
> address@hidden (Larry W. Virden, x2487) wrote:
> >I was wondering if anyone has worked out yet how to share cookies from
> >netscape with Lynx?  It appears that lynx 2.6FM isn't saving cookies ; is
> >there at least a way to have it read netscape's cookies?

        There's currently no support for saving or restoring cookies
to a file across Lynx sessions.  I'd rather get the cookie support
stable first, and then write a document describing cookies and their
implementation in Lynx, before worrying about that.

        Another thing is that the Netscape cookie file format isn't
documented, and you have no guarantee of it being stable from version
to version.  We can try to guess its format, though.  Looking at a
line from my cookie.txt file:

stage:8001      FALSE   /       FALSE   942105660       AMG_userid      AMK

Column  Content
1       Host
2       Unknown 
3       Path
4       Unknown (one of these fields must be the "secure" value, but
           which one?) 
5       Expiration time
6       Name (AMG_userid)
7       Value (AMK)


>       We also need to add editing of the cookies via the Cookie Jar
> Page, i.e., when a user activates links in that page, it should prompt
> "D)elete, E)dit or C)ancel? ", but I'm still thinking about how to
> check for nonsense cookies naive users might create.  

        I'm doubtful about the usefulness of editing cookies.  Cookies
are frequently used to hold session keys like '24636cb', and it
doesn't seem as if editing them would be very useful.  While one can
imagine a site handing out multiple human-readable cookies like
sections=news/stocks/comics, colours="black on grey", that doesn't
seem likely to happen until one of the Big Two browsers adds editing
support.  Otherwise, it's much easier to store everything on the
server and look it up using a session key in the cookie; if the cookie
gets lost, the user can "log in" to the site and re-establish the
session key.

>       I don't know how wise it would be to use the Netscape cookie
> file format, and thus tie Lynx to a "historical" implementation.

        In addition, Lynx lets you accept or reject cookies by domain.
Presumably one would want this information saved to the cookie file,
too, so the Netscape format would need to be modified (though it could
be done in a backwards compatible way).  The cookie jar would also
need to be modified to allow changing the action for a given domain,
since otherwise you'd have no way to change your past selection.


        Andrew Kuchling
        address@hidden
        http://www.magnet.com/~amk/
Save the Gutenberg Project! http://www.promo.net/pg/nl/pgny_nov96.html
;
; To UNSUBSCRIBE:  Send a mail message to address@hidden
;                  with "unsubscribe lynx-dev" (without the
;                  quotation marks) on a line by itself.
;

reply via email to

[Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread]