Re: viewing embedded HTML and MIME with external viewers

[Michael R. Wolf <MichaelRunningWolf@att.net>]

frederic.line@wanadoo.fr (Frédéric Liné) writes:

[...]

> Here are the results of the contest :
>
> * the winner is  w3m  : the page-setting is not perfect but better than 
> links'one. Many [img].
>
> * 2nd lynx  : many [img] everywhere in the text. Otherwise good. No 
> page-setting.
>
> * 3d links : no accent, and the page-setting is awful.
>
> * 4th w3 : as you said the lightest mistake in the HTML results in a 
> text renderind.
>
> w3m, lynx and w3 failed on the same messages but the failures are not 
> as so common as with w3. However they are not rare.

Indeed, they are *not* rare!!! Not by a long shot.

I'll even go so far as to say that they are common, and increasing.
Increasing in number. Increasing in importance. It used to be that I
could ignore all the HTML messages I received because they were SPAM,
but at an increasing rate, I'm getting critical information in HTML --
my accountant, my father, my brother, my friends, consulting clients,
business colleagues, invoices, and all other manner of business (i.e.
practical dollar and cents) issues.

I could choose to stay non-HTML, non-graphic, and expect (or even
require) that my sources (the environment) change, but I know what
happens to folks that don't change with the environment. Some folks
call them dinasaurs. We all know that they're extinct, or on that
path. I'd prefer to change *me*, and my reaction to the environment,
because I can't change the *environment*.

Call me practical, but until emacs can be a fully graphical browser,
all the internal renderers are bound to be playing a follow-the-leader
game of "catch up" to "real" browsers. It's just another game of
reinvent-the-wheel, but forgetting that that "ultimate wheel" is the
result of many iterations, and that all the mistakes made (and
corrected) by external (that's right *external*) *real* browsers will
have to be made (and possibly corrected, but in my observation of the
state of the practice, ignored to linger and fester), thus reverting
the game to
pretend-to-reinvent-the-wheel-(to-make-it-better)-but-settle-for-a-flat-tire-(which-is-worse).

BEGIN(important_core_of_message)

    So, given that the strategy of emulating a *real* browser will
    never work -- by design of the base strategy -- how do you launch
    a message body that contains raunchy HTML (graphics, audio, video
    and all) into a browser so that it can (so to speak) eat its own
    dog food (a trick it does very well)?

END(important_core_of_message)

Thanks,
Michael

P.S. I hope you can read my real frustration at needing a practical
solution, not just sarcastic ranting, in my description. I'd love to
stay inside emacs, having trained my fingers to it over about 20 years
now, but I do realize that emacs as a graphical editor, however
desirable, isn't likely to occur to solve the current, daily, problem
of understanding and replying to messages from the graphical,
ill-formed-HTML world.

-- 
Michael R. Wolf
    All mammals learn by playing!
        MichaelRunningWolf@att.net