Re: lynx-dev the necessity of numbering each line in textarea if "links and form fields are numbered"

[Gene Collins]

Oops!  After rereading your message, I gather that you are talking about
a text area being a group of lines that make up one field, and which are
edited as a group.  If this is the case, then I would agree that only
the first line needs to be numbered.  Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Gene Collins (address@hidden)


>Rather than eliminate the numbering of all text areas in a form, why not
>change the rendering of forms so that only one form field is allowed on
>a line?  Numbering of form fields is especially useful to blind people,
>as it allows them to jump to a particular place in the form, without
>having to traverse the intire form or page using the arrow keys.  For
>that matter, from my standpoint as a blind user, it would be useful if
>Lynx had a mode where by the fields in a form would not be edited until
>the user pressed enter on the field, and pressing enter after the edit
>would accept the edits.  This would allow the user to move between links
>and form fields randomly, without having to use the arrow keys to get
>out of a form.  I don't speak C, so I have no idea how difficult or
>simple theese suggestions would be to implement, but I would certainly
>find them to be useful.  It would seem to me that changing the way forms
>are rendered would not only solve the problems you mention, but would
>also make the information more readable for blind folks.
>
>There are probably a Zillion reasons for not rerendering forms, the two
>biggest ones I can think of are that the author's originally intended
>appearence of the page is changed, and if the form has many fields, it
>would mean the user would have to scroll through more screens of
>information.  Perhaps vertical form rerendering could be made an option
>that could be turned on and off from the options page, lynx.cfg file and
>the command line.
>
>Just some grist for the mill.
>
>Gene Collins (address@hidden)
>
>>
>> When "links and form fields are numbered" is in effect, each line in textare
a
>>is numbered. When growing textarea, the numbers of all links below textarea
>>are recalculated (and fixed on the screen immediately). It's obvious, that
>>when the number of digits in the number of given link increases (eg its numbe
r
>>was 99 and became 100) the line in which this link starts becomes wider. If
>>there are several links in the line, in worst case the line will be become
>>wider by the number of links starting in that line.
>> Seems the code currently present is buggy (and it works bad with colorstyles
>>too). Also this concept makes any rendering unreliable -e.g. justified texts
>>or upcoming rendered tables. Seems renumbering link numbers due to textarea
>>growth is the only case when the HText structure changes (ie the rendered
>>presentation of document without form contents) - this inhibits the use of
>>very smart memory allocation schemes.
>> If each line of textarea wasn't numbered, then (obviously) all problems
>>listed here will be solved, and this will allow more features to be added
>>without additional (and seems redundant) programmer pain. Keep in mind that i
n
>>the ideal case the text should be re-rendered if the number of digits changes
>>in the number of some anchor.
>>
>> So, the question is:
>>  is it so useful to number each line in textarea? 
>>
>> Please state your opinion.
>> I placed a sample page showing the problems (with instructions  how to see
>>them) at 
>> www.hippo.ru/~hvv/lynx/links-renumbering-problems.html
>>
>>
>> Best regards,
>>  -Vlad
>>