Re: [Lynx-dev] how to maximize client area???

[Chuck Martin]

On Fri, Feb 04, 2005 at 03:10:46AM -0500, address@hidden wrote:
> well, i was & did (smile).  thanx for your further grown-up thoughts,
> which are a welcome contrast to some of the "Yah-Boo" kind.

Well, I'm aware that there's a natural tendency for people to become
much more agressive online than they are face-to-face, so I make a
concious effort to make sure I don't come across that way.  I always
try to think "Would I respond to this person face-to-face like this?"
and if the answer is "No", I try to reword my response in the way that
I would be likely to respond in person, and in the way that I would
like others to respond to my comments.

> you will be pleased to hear that you have persuaded me -- a rare event --
> that adding an option to vary the left margin is a low priority or none.

One down, and, umm...how many more to go?  I've lost track.  :)

> > PRINTER:Save left-justified text:sh -c "sed -e 's/^ *//' %s > lj.txt":TRUE
> 
> i tested it & it works.  i've added it commented in case i ever want it.

Did you have any doubts?  :)

> another vital use for Lynx, which i didn't mention before,
> is to view HTML attachments in e-mails with Mutt.

I do this, too, and Lynx has the added benefit over most other browsers
and mail programs that handle HTML internally that web bugs don't work.
I have seriously been considering just blocking all HTML mail, though,
because I rarely get any that isn't spam, and I don't think HTML belongs
in e-mail, anyway.  The only exception I can see is as an attachment to
send someone a page so they can put it online somewhere, such as if you're
in the business of writing web pages, and you're mailing your work to a
client.  The primary message should always be plain text.

> > javascript is annoying
> > and I'm seriously considering starting to complain about those that use it.
> 
> good luck: i don't have such time to spare.

If I do it, I'll write a form letter that I can then customize for each
individual case, which will reduce the amount of time required.

> i really don't follow you here: how can you use Screen to sub for tabs ?

Put something like this in your lynx.cfg:

EXTERNAL:http:screen lynx %s:TRUE

Then when you want to follow a link in another "tab", just press ".",
and the page will be loaded in a separate window.  Changing tabs is
as simple as pressing ^A followed by a single digit, or if you have
more than 10, pressing ^A followed by ' and then the two digit number of
the window you want to switch to (the single digit windows can still be
switched to by the ^A-followed-by-a-single-digit method).

Actually, I do it a little differently, myself.  Instead of the above
line in my lynx.cfg, I have this:

EXTERNAL:http:browse %s:TRUE

and I have a shell script called browse that brings up a menu of browsers,
allowing my to not only bring up a page with Lynx and screen, but also
with Lynx in a separate Linux virtual console, Lynx in an xterm, several
other text browsers in screen, virtual console, or xterm, or any one of
the multitude of graphic browsers I have installed.  The shell script will
even check for the value of the $DISPLAY variable, and set it to ":0" if
it isn't set because some of these will need it if the current Lynx is
running in a virtual console.

This method also works if your current Lynx is in an xterm, and in fact,
I have a keyboard shortcut that I can use in X (with the FVWM window
manager that runs xterm like this:

xterm -g 134x56 -bg black -fg white -tn xterm-color -T Lynx -e screen lynx

That way, if I quit the last instance of Lynx in the window, the xterm
will close.  If you use that, you may want to change some of those options.
I've set it for a very big window that fills most of my screen (768x1024).
This also has the added benefit that if X crashes for some reason, you
haven't lost your Lynx sessions.  Just restart X and start another xterm
of the appropriate size and attach it to the screen session.  If you use
the above line to reattach, replacing the word lynx at the end with "-r"
and the optional screen session identifier, it will still close when you
exit the last instance of lynx.  If you open the xterm and then type the
screen command to reattach, you'll have to close the window yourself.

> > I should point out that the start-up time is very important to me
> > because I don't spend my whole day browsing the web,
> > and when I want to go to a web site quickly,
> > I don't like having to wait for the browser to start up.
> 
> yes, that's understandable, esp if you're not using multiple desktops.

I do sometimes use multiple desktops, but I don't start up a graphic
browser in one until I need it because I may not always want the same
graphic browser, depending on my needs.  In fact, if I don't need it,
I may not always have X running at all.

> > IMHO, those pages almost invariably look cluttered and ugly.
> 
> not how i see them -- everyone has different tastes -- :
> i find it easier to run thro' a list of news stories
> when the titles & links are displayed in a different color,
> whereas Lynx tends to be cluttered with all the extraneous mess of text
> which renders into indexes, pictures, yes ads too, in a GUI browser.

If a page is cluttered and ugly in a graphic browser, it will most
certainly be cluttered and ugly in Lynx.  You can't polish a turd.

> i've never used CSS: isn't it yet another language to learn ?
> a GUI browser seems to do all that for you.

People who write web pages for a living should learn to use all of the
tools necessary for doing their job correctly.  Anyone doing it as a
hobby should also learn to do it correctly, which means either learning
to use CSS or forget about layout and let the browser handle it.

Chuck