lynx-dev Comments on New Features summary

[Klaus Weide]

Comments on the text at
<http://www.slcc.edu/lynx/release2-8-2/features.html>:
>
>                       Summary of changes in Lynx v2.8.2
>                                       
>     This list only summarizes some changes, for a detailed history of
>     changes see the [1]CHANGES file.
>     
>   New features:
>     * provide international language support using gettext. Lynx may be
>       built with (or without) either GNU or Solaris gettext.
>     * implement HTML source caching. Each HTML document kept in cache
>       has associated with it a temporary file containing the document
>       source.

This describes only one of the two possible ways of caching.  I also suggest
mentioning that it has to be enabled in lynx.cfg.

>     * add changes to invoke external editor on textarea, can be invoked
>       by adding a KEYMAP entry for EDITTEXTAREA area to lynx.cfg
>     * statusline messages are now stored in a cycled buffer and
>       accessible from the History Page as LYNXMESSAGES:/ link.
>     * when STARTFILE cannot not be loaded, lynx now exits with more
>       understandable status messages. All important statusline messages
>       are now printed to stderr/stdout
>     * added experimental HTML source syntax highlighting (use option
>       -prettysrc, you must configure with --enable-prettysrc).
>       
>   Other enhancements:
>     * improve performance:
>          + cache user and group identifiers for the dired screen
>          + improve performance of forms-based options menu: fix
>            reloading of previous document only when necessary

Change to:
          + improve performance of forms-based options menu:
            reload previous document only when necessary

>          + modify keyboard interrupt check to check no more than one per
                                                                    ^ once?
>            second, since this check is comparatively slow. Use
>            gettimeofday when available, to implement 0.1 second interval
>            for skipping interrupt check.

(Does this actually describe current behavior, i.e. does the once-per-second
apply anywhere?)

>     * improve HTML interpretation:
>          + tweak for TABLE formatting: break line at </TR> end tag
>            (don't wait for next <TR> start tag), effective in SortaSGML
>            mode only
>          + formatting tweak in HTML.c for <DD> not preceded by <DT>:
>            Don't use wrong indentation in that case
>          + prevent generation of empty line between multiple simple DT
>            elements without intervening DD elements
>          + modify SGML.c to check for SGML_ELEMENT tag contents, fixing
>            a case where an entity that appears within a TABLE but
>            outside of any table row TR will be displayed by Lynx
>            _without_ its entities being interpreted
>          + Added support for Euro currency symbol.
>          + &mdash; (&#x2014) is displayed as "--"
>     * new character sets:
>          + ISO 8859-15, i.e., "Latin 9"
>          + HP Roman8
>     * improve interaction with other programs:
>          + do not report new mail when the mail file's modification time
>            differs from its access time
>          + recognize Subject and Message-Id in embedded comments in HTML
>            documents, in the form generated by MHonArc for mailing list
>            archives (including lynx-dev). Use these to generate a
>            default Subject and an In-Reply-To header (currently not for
>            VMS) when replying by mail (sending a 'C'omment, or following
>            a mailto link) from such a page.
>          + use the Message-Id of a news article to generate a References
>            header when posting a reply.
>     * improve mailcap support:
>          + correct precedence of entries within a mailcap (relative to
>            other entries from the same file) as per RFC 1524.
>          + prevent generation of some unnecessary temp files when
>            constructing mailcap file test commands
>          + optimize the test commands specified in the mailcap file by
>            remembering which tests have been run already.
>     * improve cookie support:
>          + domains now match case insensitively
>          + try to preserve cookies (within a domain) in the same order
>            in which they were received.
>          + don't write expired cookies, cookies with no value, cookies
>            with discard attribute, or cookies without expiration date to
>            persistent file
>          + write the cookie file even if we now have no cookies, if we
>            have previously read cookies from the file.
>          + make the cookie file readable by only the owner
>          + to accept cookies with no value, in case the site resets a
>            cookie by nulling out the value

Cookies with no value aren't really "accepted", they don't get stored
(neither in memory nor on disk).  I think the behavior is actually wrong
(but doesn't seem to do harm since no sites rely on it), suggest removing
this item.

>          + ignore comment lines beginning with a '#' (Netscape may send
>            comments)

It's not about Netscape "sending" anything, but about Netscape browsers
adding comment lines if the same cookie file is shared between Netscape
and Lynx.  I don't think this should be recommended (although it is
possible).  I suggest removing the parenthesis completely.

>          + relax the cookie sanity checking for version 0 (old) cookies
>            _only when_ the user has accept_all_cookies set

This doesn't describe current behavior.  Use instead (something like):

          + Rejection or Acceptance of cookies, without prompting, can be
            controlled on a per-domain basis by lynx.cfg options.  In addition,
            rejection of cookies that are invalid (according to criteria
            that follow RFC2109 and more recent drafts, which are sometimes
            stricter than the widely used "Preliminary Specification" from
            Netscape) can now be controlled by separate lynx.cfg options,
            on a per-domain basis; by default, some of these "invalid"
            cookies can be accepted after confirmation.

>     * improve mouse support:
>          + If one clicks mouse near a link, the focus is moved to the
>            link

This is disabled.  Remove item.

>          + navigation works to or inside text entry fields

Only with ncurses I think, not with slang - please verify.

>          + a context sensitive menu is invoked with the middle mouse
>            button

Only with ncurses.

>          + Double-click-1 on the first and last row are interpreted as
>            goto start, end or main-window depending on the location of
>            the click.

Only with ncurses, I think.

As it is, mouse support has lots of problems - when mouse is clicked in
anything but the "idle" state, when some menu actions are selected on
form fields - maybe it shouldn't be advertised at all.

>     * improve experimental color style:
>          + More complete (and hopefully more consistent) setting of
>            "normal" attributes, especially background color, on screen
>            refresh and after statusline messages. Set normal attributes
>            for statusline prompts.
>          + Allow mono attribute field in lynx.lss to be a combination of
>            several attributes separated by '+' characters.
>     * added experimental command "ADDRLIST", invoked with 'A',
>     * add links to HTML'ized users' guide to lynx.cfg
>     * add alternative set of line-edit bindings to change the behavior
>       of the ^B and ^F line editor bindings to provide emacs/tcsh like
>       behavior (cursor left/right), instead of "word" deletes.
>     * assign LYNXCFG:/ and LYNXCOMPILEOPTS:/ for internal pages of
>       parsed lynx.cfg and compile-time info.
>     * use case mapping from ftp.unicode.org /Public/UNIDATA for
>       case-insensitive user search, rather than UPPER8 assumption
>       introduced in 2.8 release.
>     * add 'a' response when printing a file to allow append rather than
>       overwrite

What does this mean?  I've never used this, where does one type 'a'?

If this is a hidden feature (I could not find it in the Users Guide), it
shouldn't be advertised here.

>     * add support for content encoding for x-bzip2, bzip2 for suffix
>       "bz2"

It seems suffix ".bz2" on local files isn't actually recognized in this
way - please verify, if true remove 'for suffix "bz2"'.

>     * modify print-to-file logic to permit writing to pipe, provided
>       that the user does not have no-shell restriction

There is no hint how to actually do this.

This seems to be a hidden feature (it isn't mentioned in the Users Guide),
so it shouldn't be advertised here.

>     * add tab-completion on URL's, by using previously-entered strings
>       for matching
>     * modify 123g (and similar movement) commands to allow for relative
>       links, e.g., by using a '+' or '-' after the 'g'.
>     * allow anchors as input for commands 'g','G','E'

The term "anchor" is cryptic (or wrong).  I suggest removing this item,
since only few users will use it, and for those who do it will be expected
behavior.  It's functionally only a minor fix.

[ rest snipped - no further comments ]

    Klaus