Re: lynx-dev [PATCH] remove extension to EXTERNAL command, extend CERN rules support for mailto: URLs

[Vlad Harchev]

On Tue, 11 Jul 2000, Henry Nelson wrote:

> On some excellent day in the year 2000, John Smith wrote:
 
  Why you've chosen this prolog? Is it some idiom or joke?
 
> >   We can leave the code as is (i.e. with EXTERN_OR_ACTIVATE patch) - I don't
> > mind this (since I won't use it). But I expect complains from users stating
> > that 'G' then 'enter' is not equal to 'enter'.
> 
> Why was this patch even submitted, and why is it to be left in?  Are there no
> criteria at all about the amount of testing and consideration of the pros and
> cons that a certain hack should undergo before it is implanted?  When Eduardo
> submitted his patch, it was turned down.  Is the present one so much better?
> Are we now stuck with yet another half-baked function that no one is going
> to take responsibility for to debug and maintain, let alone enhance?

 As for testing -  it's not needed since just looking at the source proves
that everything will work as expected. So don't consider it that unstable.
Also, buggy behaviour will be encountered only by those who use extension to
EXTERNAL command, not by all lynx users. 

> >   Does it really matter? I think we don't have a lot to borrow from them,
> > execpt some mailto: URL parsing code and code that generates subject line.
> [...]
> > P.S.: It's funny to see that we spent more than an hour replying to the 
> > mails
> > of each other.
> 
> I thought this thread had already been talked out.  It really boggles my
> mind that a patch pretty much going against the conclusion of the previous
> discussion was suddenly presented before lynx-dev again.

  What patch you are talking about? Seems there was no such situation (at
least there wasn't much discussion except success story from Eduardo and
command from mattack who told that it would be better to use CERN rules).

> If I'm wrong, then please correct me, but I thought what people _really_
> wanted was something equivalent to the e)ditor command.  When you press
> 'e' on a file on local disk, your default editor is called up.  Lynx
> still has it's own line editor for handling certain tasks, or if calling
> up an external command like vi is not desired.
> 
> Likewise, people seemed to want a m)ailer command, a command to call up a
> default mailer on mailto: URLs, perhaps even different situations.  This
> would be completely separate from Lynx's present mailer interface (which
> could be simplified and cleaned up) used for things like sending a page
> via the P)rint menu, for example.  Lynx's present mailer is IMO ideal for
> public-access use, and perhaps more important was implemented when
> anonymous accounts or shell-like use of Lynx was a major consideration.

  Nobody is going to remove internal mailto: handler - there would be just a
lynx.cfg setting something like EXTERNAL_MAIL:TRUE/FALSE, if TRUE it will call
external wrapper that will be supplied with a lot of mailto: -specific things
like subject, cc:, To:, and filename of the file with body quoted, if any.
  So, security won't suffer.

> Anything short of this can really be done quite smoothly already with
> the lynxcgi/pseudo-proxy or e)xternal+wrapper mechanisms.

  It's already stated in my previous mail that lynxcgi/pseudo-proxy won't work
on some environments like DOS/Win (well proxy will work under Win, but it
won't be supplied with all info internal mailto: handler has), and EXTERNAL
handler won't have all info necessary too (subject+cc+To:+body) - so some sort
of support for external handlers of mailto: should be implemented.

 As for original patch that extened EXTERNAL - I don't like it too now, but I
don't insist on removing it from source tree (is it development version or
not?).

> __Henry
> 
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 Best regards,
  -Vlad


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