2011/6/14 Ted Zlatanov
<address@hidden>
On Mon, 13 Jun 2011 12:09:23 +1000 Tim Cross <address@hidden> wrote:
TC> For emacs to really be a good desktop environment in this age, I
TC> think it must have the ability to provide access to rich web content
TC> - content that uses _javascript_, html5 etc.
I think within Emacs, w3m and shr.el are sufficient; Firefox and Chrome
are usable in the Emacs-based desktop environment I propose.
Trying to track the pile of... standards... that is HTML plus _javascript_
plus CSS is IMO a waste of time. The battle was lost in 1993 or so; a
web browser is today not so much a program as a compromise over which
standards to follow and to what extent. So I'd rather let web browsers
do that, and Emacs should not try to do it.
TC> As we can see from the lack of development with emacs w3, there does not
TC> appear to be much interest in developing a full featured web browser in
TC> emacs.
I think w3m has provided 95% of what's needed, and the rest is external.
TC> IMO for emacs to be a really useful desktop environment, it will be
TC> necessary to provide some sort of web interface and is able to
TC> support rich web content.
You said that already :)
Yes, perhaps not well structured. Unfortunately, you seem to have cut out the main point - I am not arguing for an emacs based web browser because that is not practical. However, we do need some sort of emacs interface to web content that is able to handle the increasing amount of content which w3m is unable to process. What I'm suggesting is that interface is provided by creating an interface between emacs and web browsers like firefox and chrome. Allow the web browser to do all the heavy lifting, but provide a channel that enables emacs to retrieve all/part of this content for processing/display with elisp and a channel that would allow the browser to be driven by emacs. Some work, possibly best described as proof of concept work, has bee done in this area using mozrepl by T. V. Raman as part of emacspeak. In fact, if you want to see the range of things that can be done with emacs as a deskto environment, checking out emacspeak would not be a waste of time as this is an emacs package which has been providing an advanced desktop environment which doesn't even need a display for over 15 years!
Tim