  netrik hacker's manual
>========================<

[This file contains a description of the page handling system. See hacking.txt
or hacking.html for an overview of the manual.]

The page handling system is responsible for the central browser functionality:
Loading pages to be displayed, loading new pages when links are followed etc.
This also includes all page history handling, as all page loads either affect
the page list (history), or depend on it, or both; and all history commands
involve a page load.

The page handling is also a central component, because it invokes all of the
other modules: The file loader (hacking-load.*) is used to fetch a new document
(file) if necessary, and the layout engine (hacking-layout.*) to prepare
it for rendering; the pager (hacking-pager.* is (indirectly) invoked to display
the new page; and the link handling mechanism tells when and what page to
load. Moreover, most of the modules are also coupled to the page handling,
because they use the page structure handled by the page loading mechanism.

So the page handling is really the central component, controlling the program
flow. Thus it can only partially be located in an own file (page.c); part of
the page handling has to be done in main() directly.

_load_page()_

load_page() ist the main function of load.c, and does most of the work. It
is responsible for loading a page so that it will be shown in the pager next
time display() (see hacking-pager.*) is called.

The exact actions necessary to achieve that vary on the nature of the load
operation. In the most basic operation mode it requires adding a new entry
to the page list and loading a new document to use. Sometimes however there
are only changes to the page list while the document is reused, or the page
history stays unchanged while some existing entry is reactivated and the
settings reloaded. The case of reloading some document while the page list
isn't altered, is possible as well.

load_page() takes almost the same arguments as layout(): A base URL, which is
usually the URL of the current page, which is used as the base when following
a realtive link or so; a main URL (as string), which can be absolute or
relative, in the latter case to be combined with the base URL to form an
absolute target URL; an optional form item, which tells where to find the
form data of a form to submit while loading a new document; the page width
telling how to layout loaded pages; and an error handle informing whether
some problem occured while loading the document.

In case a new document needs to be loaded, all of these parameters are simply
passed on to layout(), which is responsible for actually loading a document from
a file or an HTTP server, as well as invoking all necessary layouting passes
so that the document can be actually rendered and displayed in the pager.
This process is described in hacking-layout.*.

load_page() takes an additional "reference" parameter. This one may refer
to some entry in the page list (normally the currently used entry), which
contains an already loaded document to reuse. In this case no document load
needs to be performed (i.e. layout() isn't called), as the layouting data of
the reference page is reused. (Most of the other parameters aren't used in
this case.) This feature is used when jumping to an anchor inside a document --
it doesn't require loading a new document.

First action (even before loading the document) is creating a page descriptor
-- regardless whether a new document is loaded or existing layouting data
is reused.

This however is left out if the page is reloaded from history (indicated by
"url" being NULL), and thus already has a descriptor somewhere in the page list.

_Page List Handling_

The page list (history) is a global variable (of type "struct Page_list"), which
basically consists of an array of pointers to individual page descriptors. It
also stores the current number of entries in the list, as well es the current
active entry. (The one that describes the page visible in the pager.)

The list has one entry for each page in the page history. Normally the last
entry is the visible page, but other pages are also possible after going back
in history.

Each page descriptor is of type "struct Page". This struct contains:

- The "layout" pointer, which points to a descriptor with the document's
  layouting data created by layout().
- The page URL in the split URL structure "url"
- The current position of the pager, stored as the index of the first line
  visible on the screen ("pager_pos")
- The cursor position in "cursor_x" and "cursor_y"
- The hashes "url_fingerprint" and "text_fingerprint", used to recognize
  whether the link is identical to a link in the page (necessary when reloading
  a page from history)
- The link number of the link currently active in the pager ("active_link")
- The optionl anchor number of an anchor to jump to when starting the pager
  ("active_link")
- The "mark" flag indicating that a return mark has been set on this page

The page list is manipulated exclusively by load_page() and its helper
functions. load_page() is also responsible for keeping the list up to date,
so it always contains exactly those entries that shall be used by the history
commands.

Thus, before a new page descriptor is created, the page list needs to be
adjusted.

Normally a new entry is simply appended at the end of the list; however,
there are several other cases.

When loading some new page while not being at the last entry in the page list
(after going back to some older page from the page history), all entries
after the current one have to be discarded.

Moreover, if the current page is an internal page (either a page loaded
from stdin, or an error page), it isn't to be kept in history; in that case,
we go further back until we find the last normal page entry.

All entries after the current or the last normal one are then cleared by
calling free_page() in a loop.

Afterwards, the new page descriptor is created.

When revisiting some page from history, it also may be necessary to delete
internal pages, if leaving such. The last non-internal page is determined
(starting with the end of the list), and all following are deleted.

_add_page()_

The add_page() function (in url-history.c) is responsible for actually creating
the new page list entry. The list is a "struct Page_list", and contains the
following information:

- "num" is the number of entries currently stored in the list
- "pos" is the entry number of the entry corresponding to the currently visible
  page
- The history entries themselfs are stored in "page", which is an array of
  pointers to the page descriptors of all pages.

The new entry is added at the position indicated by "page_list.pos".

First the array is resized to the new history size -- the history now will
end with the new entry generated. Then a new page descriptor is created and
the pointer to it is stored at the proper position (the last list entry).

After creating the descriptor, some default values are set. (Pager position
etc.)

_Loading_

Now having the page descriptor, we need to get the layouting data someway so
that the page can be displayed in the pager.

Again, the standard case is loading a new document using layout(). The pointer
to the layouting data returned by that function is simply stored in the page
descriptor. The URL is extracted from the layouting data and stored in the
explicit "url" pointer of the page descriptor, which is necessary in case
the layout data will be discarded (when loading another document), but the
page is kept in history.

_Local Links_

As mentioned before, it's also possible instead of loading a new document, to
reuse existing layouting data of another one by passing a "reference" page. The
primary application of that is when following a link that points to some anchor
in the same document -- that doesn't require reloading the whole document,
but just jumping to the anchor. Of course, it is also used when returning to
the previous page after following such a local link, or going forward again.

The (pointer to) the layout data descriptor is simply copied from the page
list entry indicated by the given "reference" parameter.

As layout() and thus also init_load() (see hacking-load.*) isn't used in this
case, merge_urls() has to be called directly. If URL merging fails here,
load_page() returns immediately; no page descriptor is created and nothing
else is changed.

Also, if some anchor is active in the reference page, highlight_link() needs
to be used to remove the highlighting, to get a "clean" item tree.

_Reactivating Link_

When revisiting a page from history, and some link was active when we last
left that page, that link is reactivated for convenience. This is non-trivial
in case the page contents changed in the meantime -- we need a heuristic to
find out which is the right link.

The best matching link is determined by examining several properties of the
links: The link number, the position on the page (x and y), and two hashes
identifying the link url and the text describing the link.

The properties of each link are stored in its link structure while they are
extracted in _parse_struct()_ (see hacking-layout.*): The position is stored
in each link in "x_start" and "y_start" anyways. The hashes are extracted
with fingerprint() (which just generates a very simple (fast!) checksum of a
string part (memory range) specified by its starting and ending address), and
stored in "url_fingerprint" and "text_fingerprint". The link number is implicit.

Each time a link is activated with _activate_link_ (described in
hacking-links.*), the properties of the link are copied to the page descriptor,
so that they can be compared against the actual links when revisiting
the page later. The hashes are stored in dedicated "url_fingerprint" and
"text_fingerprint" again. The position is stored in "cursor_x" and "cursor_y".
(Presently, those values are set *only* when a link is activated, and solely
for the sake of the link retrieval -- this will change as soon as real cursor
handling is implemented...)

When revisiting a page, as a first step we do a quick test whether the link
with the old number is still the same. If all five conditions are fulfilled
(i.e. the link number is still valid, and the other four values are identical),
we know nothing has changed, and need no further processing.

If some of the conditions fails, on the other hand, we need to test all links
on the page using the heuristics. First deviations are calculated seperately
for each property: "dev_url" and "dev_text" are flags, which eqal 0 if the hash
in the tested link is identical to the one of the old link, and 1 otherwise.
"dev_x" is also a flag, being 0 if the horizontal position is identical.
"dev_y" and "dev_num" are different: These are float numbers (also in the
range 0 to 1) describing a relative deviation, i.e. the ratio between the
number of lines/links off and the total number of lines/links in the (new) page.

All of these are finally combined to form the total deviation, which is just
a weighted sum of all; the lower the value, the better the link matches.

All links are tested in a loop, and the best match is then stored as the new
"active_link". (Instead of testing all, we could limit the search to a smaller
range by pre-testing some of the criteria. However, a situation were this
would make a difference is unrealistic; it would be just a waste of code,
meaning wasted developement time, increased binary size, and most important
additional error sources and worse maintainability.)

At start "best" is set to -1 (i.e. no link), and "best_deviation" to 1.0. Thus,
only links with a deviation below or eqal 1 are considered at all; if none
was found, "active_link" is assigned -1, and no link will be activated. This
is important to ensure that only links will be activated which are actually
*similar* to the original one, not activating some unrelated random link
which happens to be nearest the old one.

Of course, this heuristic isn't perfect by any means; however, it is certainly
more than sufficient. Anything better would be waste of performance and
developement efforts. Recognition whether a candidate is worth considering
should be robust. Choosing the best if there are multiple similar candidates
is suboptimal, but such a situation is really unlikely; and if it occurs,
the question which is really the best link is disputable alyways...

The files test/mod[12].html are provided for testing the heuristics. These
need to be loaded alternatively; this is easy with Hurd, but not possible
with classical Unix systems; thus, it's necessary to use a web server with
a CGI script, or tcplisten:

while true; do for i in test/mod*.html; do cat test/stat_only.http i|tcplisten 8000; done; done

(Point netrik to http://localhost:8000 and use ^R command.)

_Anchors_

If the URL contains a fragment identifier, the corresponding anchor is
retrieved from the anchor list, and stored in "page->active_anchor"; this is
described under _Anchors_ in hacking-links.*. The pager then jumps to the
anchor position and highligts it upon startup.

_Handling in main()_

Although load_page() does a great part of the work, some things have to be
taken care of in main(); particularily determining in which manner the new
page is to be loaded (reuse current document or load new one), and clearing
the layout data of an old document before loading a new one. Maybe that could
be done in load_page() too; however, it's not worth considering that now,
as it will probably need to be handled completely different with the planned
new basic program structure. (Using an event queue and a main dispatcher.)

Another thing that needs to be handled in main() is initiating a page load
in reaction to commands given by the user inside the pager (or on the command
promt), which often can't be clearly seperated from the load operation itself.

If the user activates the command prompt (by typing ':' inside the pager)
and issues the ":e" or ":E" command, the URL is extracted from the command,
and load_page() is called to load the desired new page. The URL of the current
page is used as base for a relative URL with ":e". With ":E" (and also for
":e", if the current page is internal), no base is used; the URL is always
interpreted absolutely.

These commands never pass a reference page, i.e. always involve loading a
new document. (Even though it is possible to jump to a local anchor using
":e #anchor".)

If a link/form control was activated by pressing <return> on a selected link
inside the pager, the action depends on the link or from element type. For
normal links load_page() is used with the current URL as base, just as with
":e". The link URL is extracted from the text item containing the link with
get_link(), by help of the "link_list" structure. This process is described
under _Following Links_ in hacking-links.*.

The only difference to the ":e" command (except for the way of getting the
target URL) is that the current page is passed as "reference" to load_page()
if the URL starts with '#' (i.e. points to an anchor in the same document), so
that the document isn't reloaded in that case, but only the anchor is activated.

Form submit buttons are quite similar to normal links. First, get_form_item()
(also in hacking-links.*) is used to retrieve the item (from the structure
tree) that describes to the form in which the button resides. This is
used to get the form's submit address ("action") first. Having this,
load_page() is used to do the submit; the form item is passed as the "form"
argument. (And passed on to init_load() there; see hacking-load.*.) This
is both to tell init_load() that a form is to be submitted, and where to
find the form data. init_load() (and its sub-functions) then take care of
extracting the form data (using _url_encode()_ or _mime_encode()_ from
forms.c, also described in hacking-links.*) and submitting it to the server.
The resulting response page is loaded just like any other document.

Other form controls do not issue a load operation, but only adjust the
form value appropriately. (This is described under _Manipulating_ in
hacking-links.*.)

The 'u', 'U' and 'c' pager commands also aren't really load operations,
but they are described here because they involve similar actions as the
preparations for a page load.

If 'u' was typed, the link URL is retrieved the same way like when following
a link, and then just printed to the screen.

'U' is similar. Instead of printing the (relative) link URL directly, it
merges it with the current page URL, thus getting the same absolute target
URL that would be used if the link was actually followed.

'c' simply prints the "full_url" component of the current page URL.

If a history command was given, load_page() is called with the (split) URL
taken from the requested "page_list" entry. We know which entry to take by
"page_list.pos", which is set the desired new value before returning from
the pager.

If the history entry refers to the same HTML document as the one displayed
up to now, the current page descriptor is passed as "reference". To determine
whether it is the same document, we need to check if all entries between the
old and the new one (regardles whether the new one is before or after the
old one in history) have "local" URLs, i.e. if the newer of the two entries
was created only by following links to local anchors from the older one.

