Re: lynx-dev README.TSST

[Philip Webb]

990714 Klaus Weide announced:
> Tabular Support for Simple Tables (TSST), excl all tables
> where some of the cells are marked up as block elements: 'paragraphs'.
> paragraph-formatted cells are effectively pulled out
> before/after their row (no horizontal space is allocated to them
> for the purpose of determining column widths for core line formatting).
> ie mostly simple data cells, with occasional longer text thrown in: eg
> 
>       --------------------------------------------------------
>      |  date  |   item no.   |  price  |       remarks        |
>      |--------|--------------|---------|----------------------|
>      | date-1 | item #1      |   $0.00 |                      |
>      |--------|--------------|---------|----------------------|
>      | date-2 | item #2      | $101.99 | A longer annotation  |
>      |        |              |         | marked up as a block |
>      |        |              |         | of text.             |
>      |--------|--------------|---------|----------------------|
>      | date-3 | long item #3 |  $99.00 |                      |
>       -------------------------------------------------------- 
> 
> may be shown as
> 
>     .................................................
> 
>       date    item no.    price  remarks
>      date-1 item #1        $0.00
>      date-2 item #2      $101.99
> 
>      A longer annotation marked up as a block of
>      text.
> 
>      date-3 long item #3  $99.00
> 
>     .................................................
> 
> As can be seen, this is still quite far from the intended rendering,
> but it is better than without any tabular support.

perhaps i've not understood fully what your patch will achieve,
but it doesn't look difficult to have Lynx place the block above
on several lines as intended by the author: it needs to remember
the starting column, then continue the block on successive lines
starting at the same column till the block has been presented in full;
then it goes on with the next table line.  if it remembers the block,
it can do the same even when it occurs in an earlier cell on the line,
using starting/ending columns in those cases.

TSST is a very very long felt want: congrats for tackling it.

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