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+Tabular Support for Simple Tables
+=================================
+Some definitions first:
+
+* NO table support
+  What it says. :)  Table related tags are treated like other
+  completely unrecognized tags.
+  Only listed for completeness, this does not describe Lynx.
+
+* MINIMAL table support
+  Table related tags are recognized, and are used to separate
+  the contents of different cells (by at least a space) and rows
+  (by a line break) visibly from each other.
+
+* LYNX minimal table support (LMTS)
+  The minimal table support as implemented by Lynx up to this point,
+  also includes the way ALIGN attributes are handled on TABLE, TR
+  and other specific tweaks (e.g. handle TABLE within PRE specially).
+  LMTS formatting is briefly described in the Lynx User Guide, see
+  the section "Lynx and HTML Tables" there. (The Users Guide has not
+  yet been updated for tabular support.)
+
+* TABULAR support for tables
+  Support for tables that really arranges table cells in tabular form.
+
+* Tabular Rendering for SIMPLE Tables (TRST)
+  Tabular support for some tables that are 'simple' enough; what this
+  code change provides.
+
+One basic idea behind providing TRST is that correct tabular support
+for all tables is complex, doesn't fit well into the overwhelmingly
+one-pass way in which Lynx does things, and may in the end not give
+pleasant results anyway for pages that (ab-)use more complex table
+structures for display formatting purposes (especially in view of Lynx
+limitations such as fixed character cell size and lack of horizontal
+scrolling; see also emacs w3 mode).  Full table support within Lynx
+hasn't happened so far, and continues to seem unlikely to happen in the
+near future.
+
+The other basic idea is the observation that for simple tables, as
+used mostly for data that are really tabular in nature, LMTS rendering
+can be transformed into TRST rendering, after parsing the TABLE element,
+by two simple transformations applied line by line:
+- Insert spaces in the right places.
+- Shift the line as a whole.
+
+And that's exactly what TRST does.  An implementation based on the
+simple observation above is relatively straightforward, for simple
+tables.  On encountering the start of a TABLE element, Lynx generates
+output as usual for LMTS.  But it also keeps track of cell positions
+and lengths in parallel.  If all goes well, that additional information
+is used to fix up the already formatted output lines when the TABLE
+ends.  If not all goes well, the table was not 'simple' enough, the
+additional processing is canceled.  One advantage is that we always
+have a 'safe' fallback to well-understood traditional LMTS formatting:
+TRST won't make more complex tables look worse than before.
+
+What are 'simple' tables?  A table is simple enough if each of its TR
+rows translates into at most one display line in LMTS formatting (excluding
+leading and trailing line breaks), and the width required by each row
+(before as well as after fixup) does not exceed the available screen size.
+Note that this excludes all tables where some of the cells are marked up as
+block elements ('paragraphs').  Tables that include nested TABLE elements
+are always specifically excluded, but the inner tables may be subject to
+TRST handling.  Also excluded are some constructs that indicate that markup
+was already optimized for Lynx (or other browsers with no or minimal table
+support): TABLE in PRE, use of TAB.
+
+The description so far isn't completely accurate.  In many cases, tables are
+not simple enough according to the last paragraph, but parts of each TR row
+can still benefit from some TRST treatment.  Some partial treatment is done
+for some tables in this grey zone, which may or may not help to a better
+display, depending on how the table is used.  This is an area where tweaks
+in the future are most expected, and where the code's behavior is currently
+not well defined.
+
+One possible approach:
+- The table is 'simple' according to all criteria set out in the previous
+  paragraph, except that some cells at the beginning and/or end of TR rows
+  may contain block elements (or other markup that results in formatting
+  like separate paragraphs).
+- There is at most one range of (non-empty) table cells in each row whose
+  contents is not paragraph-formatted, and who are rendered on one line
+  together by LMTS, separate from the paragraph-formatted cells.  Let's
+  call these cells the 'core' of a row.
+Fixups are then only applied to the text lines showing the 'core' cells.
+The 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).
+
+This is expected to be most useful for tables that are mostly
+simple tabular data cells, but with the occasional longer
+text thrown in.  For example, a table with intended rendering:
+
+      --------------------------------------------------------
+     |  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 |                      |
+      -------------------------------------------------------- 
+
+It may now be shown by Lynx 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.
+
+Whether the code does something sensible with "grey area" tables is up
+for testing.  Most of the typical tables in typical Web pages aren't
+used in a way that can benefit from the TRST approach.  Parts of such
+tables may still end up getting shifted left or right by the TRST code
+when that doesn't improve anything, but I haven't seen it make things
+really worse so far (with the current code).
+
+TRST and Partial Display
+------------------------
+[ Partial display mode is the feature which allows viewing and scrolling
+of pages while they are loaded, without having to wait for a complete
+transfer. ]  During partial display rendering, table lines can sometimes
+be shown in the original formatting, i.e. with horizontal fixups not yet
+applied.  This is more likely for longer tables, and depends on the state
+in which partial display 'catches' the TRST code.  Sometimes the display
+may flicker: first the preliminary rendering of table lines is shown, then
+after loading is finished it is replaced by the fixed-up version.  I do
+not consider this a serious problem: if you have partial display mode
+enabled, presumably you want to be able to see as much data as possible,
+and scroll up and down through it, as early as possible.  In fact, the
+approach taken keeps Lynx free from a problem that may graphical browsers
+have: they often cannot render a table at all until it is received in full.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+To summarize:
+ - TRST is a solution that works in many cases where lack of tabular support
+   was most annoying.
+ - TRST doesn't implement a full table model, and it is extremely unlikely
+   that it will ever be the basis for that.  Keep on exploring external
+   solutions, or perhaps waiting for (better: working on) a more fundamental
+   redesign of Lynx's rendering engine.
+
+Klaus Weide - kweide@enteract.com 1999-10-13