https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=462256 User chappa@washington.edu added comment https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=462256#c6 --- Comment #6 from Eduardo Chappa <chappa@washington.edu> 2009-01-31 09:18:11 MST --- (In reply to comment #5)
(In reply to comment #2)
The code in Alpine assumes that the html viewer is more than that, that you also want to interact with the content (e.g. follow links in that content)
I understand your point about display vs. interaction, but URLs add another dimension to this. /etc/mailcap is about files that are already stored on the local machine (see the definition of %s in mailcap(4) as being the name of a file that contains the actual content to be displayed) and whose file format is known. In contrast, a URL describes a way to fetch the content, and you won't know the file format until you fetch at least the header (in case of HTTP).
I agree with you 100%, but that does not mean that I endorse your conclusions, because there are other considerations to take into account. The "-dump" option does not allow the user to interact with the content. If you go through the mailcap file in SuSe you will see that many entries do allow interaction with the content (not just display). Probably it would be good to know why SuSe did not allow the user to interact with the content, and just parse it. One way to solve this issue is to eliminate the "-dump" from there. Maybe you can find out why it is there, and why SuSe will not eliminate it. That I would be interested to know.
So, I still think alpine is wrong in assuming that a program that is specified as being able to display (or edit) a local HTML document is also able to retrieve and display the content behind arbitrary URLs.
That I agree in principle, but practice is so different. Do you know any program that only displays html files that does not let you interact with them? (or for that matter a program that displays pictures that does not let you edit them? - well answering my own question, a web browser, but that is not what SuSe adds to the mailcap file). It's not a black or white issue. I would like to know what motivated SuSe to add the -dump option to w3m. That is more to the point of this discussion. -- Eduardo -- Configure bugmail: https://bugzilla.novell.com/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are on the CC list for the bug.