Why Emacs should have a good web-browser

[T.V. Raman]

Note that emacspeak does integrate with firefox via mozrepl ---
Google for "firebox" --- code is in emacspeak-moz.el.

That code needs some updating to make keyboard input work with
Firefox 3 --- things changed on the firefox side post FF2, and
I've not had the chance to finish the work.

But roughly, here is how it works:

0. I start Firefox with mozrepl enabled --- in my case I tell FF
to use an Xvfb created framebuffer --- but that's just an aside,
since I dont start Gnome or any other graphical desktop --- my
desktop is Emacs.

1. From emacs, I open a repl interaction handle via which I can
send forms to FF  for evaluation.

2. On the FF side, I load in a JS  library I wrote called adom.js
http://emacspeak.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/js/

that defines a set of helper functions in JS  -- facilitate
receiving HTML in emacs back from Firefox.


-- 
Best Regards,
--raman

Title:  Research Scientist
Email:  address@hidden
WWW:    http://emacspeak.sf.net/raman/
Google: tv+raman
GTalk:  address@hidden, address@hidden
PGP:    http://emacspeak.sf.net/raman/raman-almaden.asc


3. Finally, I define a special Mozilla interaction mode where I
can send js commands to FF  from Emacs, and the response back as
HTML  --- I then hand off this HTML  to either W3 or W3M  for
processing.

All this works upto a point --- except that at present keyboard
input to FF from the emacs side is broken.

In effect, the above turns FF  into a DOM-server for Emacs.

-- 
Best Regards,
--raman

Title:  Research Scientist
Email:  address@hidden
WWW:    http://emacspeak.sf.net/raman/
Google: tv+raman
GTalk:  address@hidden, address@hidden
PGP:    http://emacspeak.sf.net/raman/raman-almaden.asc



On 7/21/09, Robert D. Crawford <address@hidden> wrote:
> Adam Wołk <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> Dnia 21-07-2009 o 22:02:28 Robert D. Crawford <address@hidden>
>> napisał(a):
>>
>>> Adam Wołk <address@hidden> writes:
>>>
>>>> I believe that having a good default and supported browser that
>>>> integrates well with Emacs would be great.
>>>
>>> Correct me if I am wrong, but this does not sound like "default" but
>>> more like "de facto," the difference being that we are talking about
>>> separate applications that run independently of each other.
>>
>> They run independently as applications but thanks to extensions like
>> mozrepl they can communicate the same way as Emacs + SLIME can with
>> many  Common Lisp implementations. So really embracing mozrepl would
>> allow  building a bridge between regular Emacs usage and browsing,
>> focusing on  conkeror allows us to have a more familiar environment
>> both for usage and  extending.
>
> Granted.  I like the interaction of a REPL.  I've played with the python
> REPL in emacs and I see it as working like emacs-w3m in that the user
> sends commands and the output gets sent to an emacs buffer.  This works
> well as it just becomes more text that can be "read" through like any
> other buffer.
>
>> quote from mozrepl website:
>>> Connect to Firefox and other Mozilla apps, explore and modify them
>>> from the inside, while they're running.
>>> Execute Javascript, play with browser GUI, sneak into HTML pages,
>>> examine functions and variables, redefine them on the fly, hot-fix
>>> bugs, ... MozRepl itself is programmable from within MozRepl.
>>
>> Conkeror can be connected both ways with Emacs using mozrepl so I can
>> imagine (but can't confirm) that one could implement a feature that
>> would  send website text content directly to emacspeak.
>
> If I understand what you are saying, the text would be sent to the
> speech server but not be rendered in an emacs buffer.  This will not
> work as it would prevent scrolling through the text, killing/yanking,
> sending URLs to other processes (mplayer and pdf2text come to mind).
> I'm not even sure how that would work with emacspeak as it relies on
> emacs to get its input... at least that is how I understand it.
>
>> So my guess is that You could not only pass every browser buffer to
>> emacspeak but also wouldn't have problems with pages using heavy
>> javascript and flash for navigation. Before You take my words for
>> granted  it would be wise to wait for confirmation of this possibility
>> from someone  with actual experience with mozrepl.
>
> There is some integration between emacspeak and the mozrepl.  I've not
> played with it in a very long time so I don't know exactly what it can
> do.  I do know that Dr. Raman was using it for javascript development
> but not for browsing.
>
>> I also saw a browser extension for Firefox called 'It's all text' that
>> could send text input elements from forms and allow to edit them in
>> external editors, sending it back when the editor saved the file. If
>> exporting text from regular Firefox this way is possible then I assume
>> that the website text content wouldn't be much different.
>
> I guess what I'm really hoping for is the speed of emacs-w3m with the
> extensibility of emacs/w3.  The main purpose of my posting is to try to
> move things in the direction of adding more accessibility to emacs.
> Plus, having a browser that can replace w3, which is getting really old,
> is a good idea.
>
> Thanks for listening,
> rdc
> --
> Robert D. Crawford                                      address@hidden
>
>
>
>