[9fans] Why does Acme only show text?

[Jason Catena <jason.catena@gmail.com>]

I've been wondering for years now why Acme (and Wily, which I used
first) only display text files.

It seems to me that the content of an Acme window could be anything: a
picture, a postscript or PDF file, a star chart, a web page.  Keeping
with the spirit of small parts brought together, Acme could outsource
the displaying of the content to another program, place its output in
the Acme window, and operate on it by sending commands from the tag to
the rendering program.  Browsers do this (except the tag-command part)
with PDF for example, displaying a PDF file within an embedded viewer
(usually Acrobat).  Looking through the Oberon document, I see that
its Acme-like interface uses exactly this kind of embedded-viewer
architecture, and commands in the tag suitable to the object viewed.

I know Oberon came first, so my question is, is there an architectural
or design reason the plumber invokes programs completely outside Acme
to view and control files other than text?  Is the embedded capture
and control a planned feature or enhancement that was just never added
to Acme yet?  Is it considered too much work or too complicated to
implement for the benefit of a more integrated interface?  Or is any
format other than text considered a red-headed stepchild to be
delegated to other programs in the few cases where it must be used?

Jason Catena