Re: [Nmh-workers] What are and what should be the qualifications for a current nmh user

[Ken Hornstein]

>Ken Hornstein <address@hidden> writes:
>hose things all look good.  I assume that you don't have any
>>mhshow-show-text/html entries in .mh_profile. So, let me ask again ....
>>what exactly is not working with mhshow?
>
>Here is first problem. The body of some Emails consist of just HTML stuff or
>perhaps an introductory line, followed by HTML. Rendering the HTML as text,
>via (I guess) w3m, is pretty pale compared to viewing it via a browser.

I have, personally, been pretty happy with the output generated by w3m on
text/html parts; it's readable, at least.  Unfortunately, we're just up
against limits in the display medium.  We could distribute entries like:

mhshow-show-image/jpeg: jpegtopnm | ppmtoascii

But should we?  As a default, probably not.  So is putting text/html through
w3m going to be as good as Chrome or Firefox?  Well, no ... that's just
not going to happen.  I think it's still miles better than it was.

>So I ask: Is there an argument, I could give to show, that would emulate the
>existence of a .mh_profile entry like:
>
>       mhshow-show-text/html: %pmhshowHelper '%d' '%s' '%f'

I've thought about the syntax for this, but it ends up being hard (also,
you have to pass it down a lot of functions).  You can set the MHSHOW
environment variable, so if you had a file "helper.mhshow" that contained:

mhshow-show-text/html: %pmhshowHelper '%d' '%s' '%f'

you could do:

MHSHOW=helper.mhshow mhshow 100

or whatever.

>Second thought: After installing w3m and elinks, should I have rebuilt and
>reinstalled nmh?

If there aren't any appropriate entries in mhn.defaults, you can simply
remove etc/mhn.defaults from the build tree, then make && make install.

>Third thought: I've been thinking about my initial assertion that the original
>MH was used by completely novice secretaries. That's true, but it was an
>unfair comparison to today. Those secretaries were not sitting alone at home
>with a PC. They were in a office, within a few feet of more experienceg users,
>and often, within a few feet of relative experts.

Yeah, that makes it different, doesn't it?  Also, that was in a pre-MIME
world.

I've thought about the nmh target audience ... I guess my thinking is
the ideal nmh user be programmers who want a flexible MUA that can make
use of many of the features of the Unix command line.  I'd still like
a user be able to walk up to a nmh installation and the basic commands
be useful without any configuration, though.

--Ken