[Mailman-Developers] Feature Request - Interactive HTML Digests

[Tanstaafl]

On 2010-02-24 1:41 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> The problem that you are not acknowledging is that generating HTML
> is *not* the problem (although turning it into a user-modifiable 
> template might not be easy, especially if you want to have reasonable
> reply-to features). It's what happens before you even *think* about
> generating the digest itself, in terms of filtering out parts that
> can't be put into HTML, etc.

It's not that I'm not acknowledging it, it's more like I just don't
understand even remotely what is entailed... I picture just a function,
and a template - obviously overly simplistic

Ok, Mark had posted once that my request implied that this new digest
would need to be one big html message, instead of having a bunch of
attached messages...

A really dumb question - is there no way to (reliably, or even at all?)
'interact' with just the headers of messages that are attached? Ie,
consider an HTML digest, with the individual messages as attachments,
with mailto: hyperlinks in the digest *body* that interact with the
headers in the *attached* messages... it seems it would eliminate the
issue of having to break down and deal with the individual parts of the
messages in the digest... but I'm probably just displaying more
ignorance for you all to laugh about (no worries, my skin is pretty
thick, and I know I'm totally ignorant about a lot of this stuff).

Obviously, for this to work, attachments would have to be displayed
in-line, but I already do this, and so does everyone I know, and every
MUA I've looked at can view attachments inline, so this shouldn't be an
issue...

> The big question here is how to arrange for quoting of the body.

Actually, since already said that it obviously heavily complicates the
process, I'd just as soon live without any quoting at all for this kind
of digest. But maybe it would be possible to just generate the
attribution line and put it at the top of the body of the reply. That
way if quoting needs to be done, the user need only select/copy the text
to quote before clicking the appropriate Reply mailto link, then 'paste
as quotation' under the attribution...

> Links based on header content are easy; the headers are well-defined,
> and their contents have a reasonably well-understood syntax.

Thanks for confirming that. Now, if the answer to my first question
above (about being able to reference the headers of *attached*
messages), maybe this will be a little more doable, given no need to
quote anything when these Reply-to mailto: links are used.

>>>> 2. Make it template based, so as to be easily modifiable by the MM
>>>> admin.

>>> Impossible.

>> Ahem... 'Nothing is impossible' my Dad would say. ;)

> 'There ain't no such thing as a free lunch,' my economics textbooks
> say.  But then, you know that.

Yes - but my point was there is a huge difference between 'impossible'
and 'will be a lot of work from someone'.

> Of course somebody who can hack code can make it do anything.  But can
> *you*?  You're the person I'm thinking of when I write "impossible"
> referring to the MM admin changing the basic function.

Why would you do that? I've already explained that I'm not a programmer.
This is a Feature Request, not a proposal for work that I am wanting to
do myself. Everything I said in terms of hacking the code would
obviously be in context of someone not only capable of doing so, but
being *willing* to do so... and maybe it will be no one - it looks like
I'm about the only one who really likes the idea (Mark and Barry didn't
hate/reject it, but neither sound interested enough in working on it)...

> Of course, you *could* learn to hack code ("nothing is impossible"),
> but so far I detect no such appetite in you.

Its not a matter of appetite, it's a simple matter of time. It would
take me years to get to the point I'd even be able to start thinking
about taking on something like this...

> OTOH, the people who can hack the code very likely don't need this
> feature at all.

Why? Because they all use EMACS? Or because their coding skills are so
powerful that they can directly manipulate the digest stream with their
visual cortex?

Sorry, but the condescension in your comments is getting a little old.

> Of course, if you have say USD10,000 to offer, that would change 
> matters entirely I bet. :-)

I wish I was independently wealthy, because there are a lot of things on
my personal wish list for a lot of the free software I use that I would
love to be able to pay to get implemented... sadly, I am not.

Anyway, again, thanks for helping to flesh this out...

-- 

Charles