Re: lynx-dev Tables in Lynx

[Ami Fischman]

> So you have checked it out; please share more of your experiences.
> (I think I have only tried one of the scripts, quite a while ago; but
> I'm not one of those asking for better table support.)

The options at http://www.crl.com/%7Esubir/lynx/patches.html are as follows:
(my comments indented with AF>)

1) http://www.mich.com/~thomas/ftp/ Thomas Zerucha's http proxy is capable of
          pre-processing HTML, among other things making tables prettier. 
AF>Works somewhat as a proxy.  Has trouble with overly wide tables (and line
AF>wrapping).   Turns www.slashdot.org (my test for tables...) into a mess
AF>(a lot of the HTML code appears as text, and the table is almost
AF>useless). 

2) http://frito.awa.com/cgi-bin/tableparse Perl script written by Brian
          Exelbierd <address@hidden> 
AF>Site is down, and has been for months.  Perhaps moved?

3) http://home.earthlink.net/~andrewsmith/tableparser-pl.txt Perl script
          written by Andrew Smith <address@hidden> 
AF>I can't test this at the moment.
AF>It's meant for people who are publishing web content to use (it will only
AF>serve preformatted tables to non-Mozilla browsers), not for people who want
AF>a general purpose table translator, although presumably it could be gutted
AF>to give that functionality (which is already present in #1 above).

4) http://frito.awa.com/cgi-bin/ctp C script written by Brian Exelbierd
          <address@hidden>  
AF>See #2 (same site).

> I think someone recently wrote that lack of better formatting for *simple*
> tables was the most frustrating.  I tend to agree with that.

In that case, take a look at #1 above.  It does simple tables fairly well.

> All-or-nothing is not a productive approach here, imo.  More complicated
> tables will be difficult, whether outside of lynx or within lynx.

Agreed.
-- 
   --Ami Fischman <address@hidden || http://www.fischman.org/ami>
                        finger address@hidden for public PGP key.