links in mail body

links in mail body

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Hi,

I'm deeply confused about the way that links within email/news bodies
are treated. It seems to me that links behave differently depending on
whether the mail is plain text or HTML, and possibly whether it is a
mail or news item? I swear I have opened two apparently equivalent
mails, and in one links open in w3m, while in the other they open in
Chrome, my system default. Additionally, links seem to behave
differently depending on whether I put point on them and hit return, or
whether I click on them with the mouse.

I notice that, when point is on a link, I get a new "Link" menu on the
menu bar, which contains various helpful commands. Only "copy to kill
ring" is bound to a key ('u'): presumably I could bind "Open in an
external browser" to a key, provided that I knew the actual name of the
command -- but I don't. Where is that menu defined? I don't even know if
it is part of Gnus or Message.

All I want is: I open a mail or a news item, hit 'h' to enter the body,
tab to the link I want, and then hit 'return' to send that link to
Chrome. That's all. It wouldn't even have to be return, it could be
anything. If there was an alternate key to open the link in w3m that
would be a bonus, but not at all necessary. What do I do?!

My browse-url-generic-program is set to "google-chrome", otherwise I
haven't customized anything.

I am: Ubuntu, Emacs 23.1.1, Gnus v5.13.

Help!
Eric

Re: links in mail body

[Daniel Pittman]

Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:

> I'm deeply confused about the way that links within email/news bodies are
> treated. It seems to me that links behave differently depending on whether
> the mail is plain text or HTML, and possibly whether it is a mail or news
> item?

Well, between plain text and HTML, certainly, when using w3m (the old way) to
render the mail: it does the w3m thing rather than the Gnus thing.

I use this code to do the right thing inside w3m HTML mail too:

(defadvice w3m-safe-view-this-url
  (around gnus-open-in-real-browser activate)
  "Cause w3m to open a URL in an external browser, but only within the
scope of a Gnus mail buffer.  In theory.  It presently doesn't implement
that limit at all."
  (browse-url (w3m-anchor)))

Please notice the documented limitation in that advice, of course.

        Daniel
-- 
✣ Daniel Pittman            ✉ daniel@rimspace.net            ☎ +61 401 155 707
               ♽ made with 100 percent post-consumer electrons

Re: links in mail body

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:

> I notice that, when point is on a link, I get a new "Link" menu on the
> menu bar, which contains various helpful commands. Only "copy to kill
> ring" is bound to a key ('u'): presumably I could bind "Open in an
> external browser" to a key, provided that I knew the actual name of the
> command -- but I don't. Where is that menu defined? I don't even know if
> it is part of Gnus or Message.

Me neither.  I've grepped though the Gnus and Emacs sources, and the
only place I find the string "copy to kill ring" is in the outline
package, which surely isn't involved here...

> All I want is: I open a mail or a news item, hit 'h' to enter the body,
> tab to the link I want, and then hit 'return' to send that link to
> Chrome. That's all.

This is the default behaviour now in git Gnus.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: links in mail body

[Eric Abrahamsen]

On Thu, Sep 02 2010, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen wrote:

> Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:
>
>> I notice that, when point is on a link, I get a new "Link" menu on the
>> menu bar, which contains various helpful commands. Only "copy to kill
>> ring" is bound to a key ('u'): presumably I could bind "Open in an
>> external browser" to a key, provided that I knew the actual name of the
>> command -- but I don't. Where is that menu defined? I don't even know if
>> it is part of Gnus or Message.
>
> Me neither.  I've grepped though the Gnus and Emacs sources, and the
> only place I find the string "copy to kill ring" is in the outline
> package, which surely isn't involved here...

That's because I remembered the name wrong :) It's "Copy Link Location"
and the "Link" menu is defined in emacs-w3m. So that's that mystery
solved. I guess, even if w3m is used to display the message (I see
there's another ongoing thread on that topic), I don't want it
intervening with links.

>
>> All I want is: I open a mail or a news item, hit 'h' to enter the body,
>> tab to the link I want, and then hit 'return' to send that link to
>> Chrome. That's all.
>
> This is the default behaviour now in git Gnus.

I'll try running git Gnus then!

Thanks,
Eric

Re: links in mail body

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:

> That's because I remembered the name wrong :) It's "Copy Link Location"
> and the "Link" menu is defined in emacs-w3m. So that's that mystery
> solved. I guess, even if w3m is used to display the message (I see
> there's another ongoing thread on that topic), I don't want it
> intervening with links.

I've now implemented the `u' behaviour from emacs-w3m in both text/plain
URLs and in the new HTML mode.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: links in mail body

[Eric Abrahamsen]

On Sat, Sep 04 2010, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen wrote:

> Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:
>
>> That's because I remembered the name wrong :) It's "Copy Link Location"
>> and the "Link" menu is defined in emacs-w3m. So that's that mystery
>> solved. I guess, even if w3m is used to display the message (I see
>> there's another ongoing thread on that topic), I don't want it
>> intervening with links.
>
> I've now implemented the `u' behaviour from emacs-w3m in both text/plain
> URLs and in the new HTML mode.

Thanks! I've updated to No Gnus 0.11 and everything works beautifully.

Eric