Re: [nmh-workers] Formatting HTML to Text: netrik.

[Ronald F. Guilmette]

Catching up on my emails...

In message <7376.1561672209@localhost>, 
Michael Richardson <address@hidden> wrote:

>Ronald F. Guilmette <address@hidden> wrote:
>    > Quite simply, all I would wish for would be something that would 
> -properly-
>    > convert -both- HTMLized emails -and- "Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64"
>    > emails (like this one I'm responding to) into good old fashioned ascii,
>    > at least for purposes of the "show" and "repl" commands.  I have my
>    > jury-rigged solution working adequately well for the base64 encoding
>    > still, but only for the "show" command, which means that I have to do
>    > some manual cutting-and-pasting when/if I want to reply to a base64
>    > encoded email. :-(
>
>I would also like that for the cases where I want to use show.

I'm going to be trying the solution that was suggested to me... hopefully
today.

>I use mh-e, and I mostly have things configured right:
>  1) use text/plain if it exists.

Ummm... YEA!  Gosh!  I would hope so!

>  2) format text/html is no text/plain
>  (3) but often text/plain is bullshit-pseudo-HTML and you need to avoid it.

I do not have any understanding of your points (2) and (3).  Could you
elaborate?

>The additional problem is that reply yanks text from formatted text/html
>rather than text/plain.

Yes, that's a problem.  And it should most certainly get fixed.  (My own
crappy/broken solution that I slapped together with spit and bubble gum
years ago did at least try to grab a text/plain section, when available.)

>The good HTML formatters in mh-e (Emacs) are slow,
>and the fast ones do a poor job.

Are you saying that, for example, lynx does a crummy job?

It's pretty fast.  Does that mean it also produces crappy results?

I have trouble believe that in this day and age, when we have had REALLY
widespread use of HTML for around a couple of decades now, that there are
still -zero- tools tyat can quicky render HTML into plain text without
mucking it up somehow.


Regards,
rfg