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Can Mutt translate graphical emoticons to ASCII/ANSI characters?

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Ant

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Jul 26, 2009, 6:12:27 PM7/26/09
to
Hello!

I noticed in my Mutt v1.4.1i client on my friend's old Fedora/Linux
server with SSH2 connections, I see emoticons changed to unreadable
characters. Like a happy face to "J". Or "\001" to don't know what it
is. Most users use graphical e-mail clients like Outlook so they would
have graphical emoticons and stuff.

Can newer Mutt translate properly or is there something else I need to
show them correctly? I still prefer old school text e-mail reader like
Pine and Mutt. I still use Tin for my newsreader too!

Thank you in advance. :)
--
Allah's Apostle said, "Once while a prophet amongst the prophets was
taking a rest underneath a tree, an ant bit him. He, therefore, ordered
that his luggage be taken away from underneath that tree and then
ordered that the dwelling place of the ants should be set on fire. Allah
sent him a revelation: 'Wouldn't it have been sufficient to burn a
single ant (that bit you)?'" --Translation of Sahih Bukhari, Book 54,
Number 536
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Phil/Ant @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
| |o o| | Ant's Quality Foraged Links (AQFL): http://aqfl.net
\ _ / Nuke ANT from e-mail address: phi...@earthlink.netANT
( ) or ANT...@zimage.com
Ant is currently not listening to any songs on his home computer.

Indi

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Jul 26, 2009, 9:32:40 PM7/26/09
to
On 2009-07-26, Ant <ANT...@zimage.com> wrote:
> Hello!
>
> I noticed in my Mutt v1.4.1i client on my friend's old Fedora/Linux
> server with SSH2 connections, I see emoticons changed to unreadable
> characters. Like a happy face to "J". Or "\001" to don't know what it
> is. Most users use graphical e-mail clients like Outlook so they would
> have graphical emoticons and stuff.
>
> Can newer Mutt translate properly or is there something else I need to
> show them correctly? I still prefer old school text e-mail reader like
> Pine and Mutt. I still use Tin for my newsreader too!
>
> Thank you in advance. :)

I believe you'll want to make sure your version of mutt is recent and that
the machine and the terminal you're using understand UTF-8. Even so, you
might occasionally see some weirdness in mail from people using older or
non-UTF-8-capable software. I sometimes see that in mail from people using
older versions of outlook or eudora.

HTH,
--
indi

Ant

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Jul 26, 2009, 11:16:54 PM7/26/09
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On 7/26/2009 6:32 PM PT, Indi typed:

Ah, I use PuTTY and SecureCRT for my Windows SSH clients. Not sure if
they do UTF-8.
--
"Remember, ants are only waiting for you to die..." --unknown

Indi

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Jul 27, 2009, 9:48:08 AM7/27/09
to
On 2009-07-27, Ant <ANT...@zimage.com> wrote:
> On 7/26/2009 6:32 PM PT, Indi typed:
>
>>> I noticed in my Mutt v1.4.1i client on my friend's old Fedora/Linux
>>> server with SSH2 connections, I see emoticons changed to unreadable
>>> characters. Like a happy face to "J". Or "\001" to don't know what it
>>> is. Most users use graphical e-mail clients like Outlook so they would
>>> have graphical emoticons and stuff.
>>>
>>> Can newer Mutt translate properly or is there something else I need to
>>> show them correctly? I still prefer old school text e-mail reader like
>>> Pine and Mutt. I still use Tin for my newsreader too!
>>>
>>> Thank you in advance. :)
>>
>> I believe you'll want to make sure your version of mutt is recent and that
>> the machine and the terminal you're using understand UTF-8. Even so, you
>> might occasionally see some weirdness in mail from people using older or
>> non-UTF-8-capable software. I sometimes see that in mail from people using
>> older versions of outlook or eudora.
>
> Ah, I use PuTTY and SecureCRT for my Windows SSH clients. Not sure if
> they do UTF-8.


Yes, I'm afraid putty tends to be a problem.

--
indi

Matthew Loar

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Jul 27, 2009, 1:34:59 PM7/27/09
to

PuTTY supports UTF-8, it just defaults to ISO-8859-1 on Windows. Select
UTF-8 in Settings->Window->Translation.

Matt

Ant

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Jul 27, 2009, 11:58:46 PM7/27/09
to
On 7/27/2009 10:34 AM PT, Matthew Loar typed:

Thanks. I will try that later when I see the problematic emoticons
again. I tried to send test e-mails from my workplace's Office 2003, but
couldn't reproduce it. I wonder what I did wrong. I didn't see "J",
"\001", etc. Maybe it is only happening with 2007.
--
"An ant on the move does more than a dozing ox." --Mexican Proverb

Ant

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Aug 3, 2009, 2:42:53 PM8/3/09
to
> >>> I believe you'll want to make sure your version of mutt is recent and that
> >>> the machine and the terminal you're using understand UTF-8. Even so, you
> >>> might occasionally see some weirdness in mail from people using older or
> >>> non-UTF-8-capable software. I sometimes see that in mail from people using
> >>> older versions of outlook or eudora.
> >>
> >> Ah, I use PuTTY and SecureCRT for my Windows SSH clients. Not sure if
> >> they do UTF-8.
> >
> > Yes, I'm afraid putty tends to be a problem.

> PuTTY supports UTF-8, it just defaults to ISO-8859-1 on Windows. Select
> UTF-8 in Settings->Window->Translation.

I still can't get them to show up correctly. Here is a result even after
changing to UTF-8: http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/6700/screenshote.gif
... :( FYI, the remote users used Outlook 11 (think that's 2003?). I
even tried font settings (Courier and Terminal).

Does it really need a newer Mutt version?

Thank you in advance. :)

--
"When you can't fight on and drop to die; you're just a big tasty feast
for the crows, ants, buzzards and flies." --unknown
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Ant @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)


| |o o| | Ant's Quality Foraged Links (AQFL): http://aqfl.net

\ _ / Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
( )

Thomas Wiegner

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Aug 3, 2009, 3:20:41 PM8/3/09
to
On Mon, 03 Aug 2009, Ant <ANT...@zimage.com> wrote:
>> PuTTY supports UTF-8, it just defaults to ISO-8859-1 on Windows. Select
>> UTF-8 in Settings->Window->Translation.
>
> I still can't get them to show up correctly. Here is a result even after
> changing to UTF-8: http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/6700/screenshote.gif
> ... :( FYI, the remote users used Outlook 11 (think that's 2003?). I
> even tried font settings (Courier and Terminal).

Sure, this is really a mutt issue? The message is filtered by
htmlview and not displayed by mutt directly. What happens if
you save the html part of the mail and call htmlview from the
shell? What html code is used for the smiley?

Cheers,

Thomas

--
[X] Nail here for new Monitor

Ant

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Aug 3, 2009, 5:38:40 PM8/3/09
to
> >> PuTTY supports UTF-8, it just defaults to ISO-8859-1 on Windows. Select
> >> UTF-8 in Settings->Window->Translation.
> >
> > I still can't get them to show up correctly. Here is a result even after
> > changing to UTF-8: http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/6700/screenshote.gif
> > ... :( FYI, the remote users used Outlook 11 (think that's 2003?). I
> > even tried font settings (Courier and Terminal).

> Sure, this is really a mutt issue? The message is filtered by
> htmlview and not displayed by mutt directly. What happens if
> you save the html part of the mail and call htmlview from the
> shell? What html code is used for the smiley?

Hmm, I can't figure out how to disable htmlview. I think I needed it to
view HTML e-mails? I don't see any references to htmlview in my
~/.muttrc.

Not sure what HTML code uses smilies. I don't see it listed in
http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/charset/latin1.gif ...

I also can't seem to reproduce these smilies in my office's Outlook 2003
SP3. I tried sending out HTML and RTF formats separately, but no luck
in seeing J and others.

Indi

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Aug 4, 2009, 2:11:55 AM8/4/09
to
On 2009-08-03, Ant <ANT...@zimage.com> wrote:
>
> Hmm, I can't figure out how to disable htmlview. I think I needed it to
> view HTML e-mails? I don't see any references to htmlview in my
> ~/.muttrc.
>

That would be in your ~/.mailcap file in *nix, but I have no idea
whether you get one of those in windows with putty...
But if you run cygwin, have a .mailcap file, and install links
you should be able to use a line like:

"text/html; links -dump -eval 'set document.codepage.assume
="%{charset}"' %s; copiousoutput"

(all one line with beginning and ending quotes removed)

Also I think if you have cygwin you won't need putty anymore, which from
what other win users have told me I gather would be a good thing.
In fact, you could just run mutt in cygwin. Piece of cake.

> Not sure what HTML code uses smilies. I don't see it listed in
> http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/charset/latin1.gif ...
>
> I also can't seem to reproduce these smilies in my office's Outlook 2003
> SP3. I tried sending out HTML and RTF formats separately, but no luck
> in seeing J and others.

Are you sure there actually are smilies in those messages?

--
indi

Ant

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Aug 4, 2009, 4:30:01 AM8/4/09
to
On 8/3/2009 11:11 PM PT, Indi typed:

>> Hmm, I can't figure out how to disable htmlview. I think I needed it to
>> view HTML e-mails? I don't see any references to htmlview in my
>> ~/.muttrc.
>
> That would be in your ~/.mailcap file in *nix, but I have no idea
> whether you get one of those in windows with putty...
> But if you run cygwin, have a .mailcap file, and install links
> you should be able to use a line like:
>
> "text/html; links -dump -eval 'set document.codepage.assume
> ="%{charset}"' %s; copiousoutput"
>
> (all one line with beginning and ending quotes removed)

Dang it. I don't have a local .mailcap, but there's a global one (not my
box and no access to change it):
$ cat /etc/mailcap
###
### Begin Red Hat Mailcap
###

audio/mod; /usr/bin/mikmod %s
# play is apparently a security hole
#audio/*; /usr/bin/play %s

image/*; gthumb %s

application/msword; ooffice %s
application/pdf; ggv %s
application/postscript ; ggv %s

text/html; /usr/bin/htmlview %s ; copiousoutput


> Also I think if you have cygwin you won't need putty anymore, which from
> what other win users have told me I gather would be a good thing.
> In fact, you could just run mutt in cygwin. Piece of cake.

Ah, I am not going that far just to run for a tiny annoyance. I use a
portable PuTTY. ;)


> Are you sure there actually are smilies in those messages?

That is what a few people are sending me. I ask what are these stuff
(e.g., "J") are and they tell me that they are smilies. Basically, "J"
is a happy face.
--
"The eyeless ant asked God, 'Give me eye-lashes.'" --Georgian Proverb
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Phil/Ant @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)


| |o o| | Ant's Quality Foraged Links (AQFL): http://aqfl.net

Indi

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Aug 4, 2009, 12:16:57 PM8/4/09
to
On 2009-08-04, Ant <ANT...@zimage.com> wrote:
>
> Dang it. I don't have a local .mailcap, but there's a global one (not my
> box and no access to change it):

Hey, no problem then. While logged in to that server just copy
/etc/mailcap to ~/.mailcap and replace the "text/html" line with the
line I mentioned before. Assuming of course, links is installed.
If it isn't, check for lynx, w3m, or elinks. The same line should work
with any of those (might need some slight changing of the options for
lynx or w3m, not sure but it's not hard to get that info on google).

HTH,
--
indi

James Wilkinson

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Aug 4, 2009, 5:22:58 PM8/4/09
to
Ant wrote:
> Hello!
>
> I noticed in my Mutt v1.4.1i client on my friend's old Fedora/Linux
> server with SSH2 connections, I see emoticons changed to unreadable
> characters. Like a happy face to "J". Or "\001" to don't know what
> it is. Most users use graphical e-mail clients like Outlook so they
> would have graphical emoticons and stuff.
>
> Can newer Mutt translate properly or is there something else I need
> to show them correctly? I still prefer old school text e-mail reader
> like Pine and Mutt. I still use Tin for my newsreader too!
>
> Thank you in advance. :)

You may find
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2006/05/23/604741.aspx to be
of interest:

The J started out its life as a smiley-face. The WingDings font puts
a smiley face where the letter J goes.
and
As the message travels from machine to machine, the font formatting
may get lost or mangled, resulting in the letter J appearing when a
smiley face was intended. (Note that this is not the same as the
smiling face incorporated into Unicode as U+263A, which looks like
this: ☺. Some of you might see it; others might not.)

As for what to do about it – I’m not sure. You could either try
installing WingDings (or something compatible) and opening the HTML in a
graphical browser, or coming up with some filter that translates
WingDings glyphs to the appropriate UTF-8.

Incidentally, it looks like your friend’s server is Fedora Core 6 at the
latest. This has had no security updates for about eighteen months.

James.

--
E-mail: james@ | The grass is always greener on the other side of the
aprilcottage.co.uk | sunglasses.

Ant

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Aug 5, 2009, 9:26:05 AM8/5/09
to
On 8/4/2009 9:16 AM PT, Indi typed:

OK, I will try "text/html; elinks %s ; copiousoutput" in my ~/.mailcap
file and see what happens.
--
"The antics begin!" --SimAnt Game

Ant

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Aug 5, 2009, 9:29:17 AM8/5/09
to
On 8/4/2009 2:22 PM PT, James Wilkinson typed:

>> I noticed in my Mutt v1.4.1i client on my friend's old Fedora/Linux
>> server with SSH2 connections, I see emoticons changed to unreadable
>> characters. Like a happy face to "J". Or "\001" to don't know what
>> it is. Most users use graphical e-mail clients like Outlook so they
>> would have graphical emoticons and stuff.
>>
>> Can newer Mutt translate properly or is there something else I need
>> to show them correctly? I still prefer old school text e-mail reader
>> like Pine and Mutt. I still use Tin for my newsreader too!
>>
>> Thank you in advance. :)
>
> You may find
> http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2006/05/23/604741.aspx to be
> of interest:
>
> The J started out its life as a smiley-face. The WingDings font puts
> a smiley face where the letter J goes.
> and
> As the message travels from machine to machine, the font formatting
> may get lost or mangled, resulting in the letter J appearing when a
> smiley face was intended. (Note that this is not the same as the
> smiling face incorporated into Unicode as U+263A, which looks like
> this: ☺. Some of you might see it; others might not.)
>
> As for what to do about it – I’m not sure. You could either try
> installing WingDings (or something compatible) and opening the HTML in a
> graphical browser, or coming up with some filter that translates
> WingDings glyphs to the appropriate UTF-8.

Wow! WinDing font. Yeah, I wonder eLinks and Lynx can handle that.


> Incidentally, it looks like your friend’s server is Fedora Core 6 at the
> latest. This has had no security updates for about eighteen months.

Yeah, he's aware of that. It is a very old alpha-based (not x86) box. He
doesn't have the budget to replace it at this time. :(
--
"God is a mean kid sitting on an ant-hill with a magnifying glass, and
I'm the ant." --Bruce Nolan (Bruce Almighty movie)

Ant

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Aug 5, 2009, 3:14:17 PM8/5/09
to
> >> Dang it. I don't have a local .mailcap, but there's a global one (not my
> >> box and no access to change it):
> >
> > Hey, no problem then. While logged in to that server just copy
> > /etc/mailcap to ~/.mailcap and replace the "text/html" line with the
> > line I mentioned before. Assuming of course, links is installed.
> > If it isn't, check for lynx, w3m, or elinks. The same line should work
> > with any of those (might need some slight changing of the options for
> > lynx or w3m, not sure but it's not hard to get that info on google).

> OK, I will try "text/html; elinks %s ; copiousoutput" in my ~/.mailcap
> file and see what happens.

Now I see :) instead of the symbol. Is that what supposed to happen? I
hope so!


--
"When you can't fight on and drop to die; you're just a big tasty feast
for the crows, ants, buzzards and flies." --unknown

/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Ant @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)


| |o o| | Ant's Quality Foraged Links (AQFL): http://aqfl.net

Indi

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Aug 5, 2009, 4:14:45 PM8/5/09
to
On 2009-08-05, Ant <ANT...@zimage.com> wrote:
>
> Now I see :) instead of the symbol. Is that what supposed to happen? I
> hope so!
>

Congrats, you got it, Ant!

--
indi

Ant

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Aug 6, 2009, 1:07:42 AM8/6/09
to
On 8/5/2009 1:14 PM PT, Indi typed:

>> Now I see :) instead of the symbol. Is that what supposed to happen? I
>> hope so!
>>
>
> Congrats, you got it, Ant!

Seems like htmlview is outdated, but then it is an oudated OS.

Thank you, Thomas, and James. :)
--
"Where the sugar is, there will the ant be also." --Philippines
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Phil/Ant @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)


| |o o| | Ant's Quality Foraged Links (AQFL): http://aqfl.net

Indi

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Aug 6, 2009, 8:07:41 PM8/6/09
to
On 2009-08-06, Ant <ANT...@zimage.com> wrote:
>
> Thank you, Thomas, and James. :)
>

OK fine, I don't need thanks.

--
indi

Ant

unread,
Aug 8, 2009, 12:50:59 AM8/8/09
to
On 8/5/2009 12:14 PM PT, Ant typed:

>>>> Dang it. I don't have a local .mailcap, but there's a global one (not my
>>>> box and no access to change it):
>>> Hey, no problem then. While logged in to that server just copy
>>> /etc/mailcap to ~/.mailcap and replace the "text/html" line with the
>>> line I mentioned before. Assuming of course, links is installed.
>>> If it isn't, check for lynx, w3m, or elinks. The same line should work
>>> with any of those (might need some slight changing of the options for
>>> lynx or w3m, not sure but it's not hard to get that info on google).
>
>> OK, I will try "text/html; elinks %s ; copiousoutput" in my ~/.mailcap
>> file and see what happens.
>
> Now I see :) instead of the symbol. Is that what supposed to happen? I
> hope so!

Uh oh. I saw \240 for double spaces(?).

I tried to use lynx but Mutt seems to hangs when reading the e-mails:
---Mutt: /var/spool/mail/ant [Msgs:2
8.5K]---(date/date)-----------------------(all)---
Invoking autoview command: lynx '/tmp/muttm6nNf5'

Using Links seems to work. We'll see... w3m doesn't exist on that box.
:( Are there any others to try in case Links is not sufficient?
--
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Phil/Ant @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)


| |o o| | Ant's Quality Foraged Links (AQFL): http://aqfl.net

Indi

unread,
Aug 8, 2009, 1:55:17 PM8/8/09
to
On 2009-08-08, Ant <ANT...@zimage.com> wrote:
>
> Uh oh. I saw \240 for double spaces(?).
>
> I tried to use lynx but Mutt seems to hangs when reading the e-mails:
> ---Mutt: /var/spool/mail/ant [Msgs:2
> 8.5K]---(date/date)-----------------------(all)---
> Invoking autoview command: lynx '/tmp/muttm6nNf5'
>
> Using Links seems to work. We'll see... w3m doesn't exist on that box.
>:( Are there any others to try in case Links is not sufficient?

I use elinks with the following (all one line, remove beginning and
end quotes):

"text/html; elinks -dump utf-8 -eval 'set document.codepage.assume
="%{charset}"' %s; copiousotput"

Indi

unread,
Aug 8, 2009, 4:55:06 PM8/8/09
to
On 2009-08-08, Ant <ANT...@zimage.com> wrote:
>
>
> Using Links seems to work. We'll see... w3m doesn't exist on that box.
>:( Are there any others to try in case Links is not sufficient?
>

Ok, so I've been experimenting and have found that actually lynx seems to
provide the best UTF-8 compliance. With elinks I do see some garbage
replacing " and ' characters. You can install lynx in ~/bin if you need
to, it's easy to do. Here's the .mailcap entry which gave me the best results
(verbatim, but remove the leading and ending quotes, all on one line):

"text/html; lynx -dump -force_html -assume_charset %{charset} -localhost %s;
copiousoutput"

So far, output from that in mutt looks perfect.

HTH,

--
indi

Ant

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Aug 8, 2009, 6:17:54 PM8/8/09
to
On 8/8/2009 1:55 PM PT, Indi typed:

I will try that later if I am still having problems. Wow, crazy
parameters. :)

FYI, I am using Lynx v2.8.5dev.16 (01 Jun 2003) which is so old. Maybe
that's the problem. As for Links, it is not Links! It's actually ELinks
v0.9.2 (even "man links" confirms it)! Woah. The ELinks I was compiled
and used was v0.11.6 (built on Mar 30 2009 08:10:59). I wonder why older
ELinks was better. Weird.
--
"The shadows now so long do grow,... That brambles like tall cedars
show,... Molehills seem mountains, and the ant... Appears a monstrous
elephant." --Charles Cotton's poem

Indi

unread,
Aug 8, 2009, 6:32:51 PM8/8/09
to
On 2009-08-08, Ant <ANT...@zimage.com> wrote:
>
> I will try that later if I am still having problems. Wow, crazy
> parameters. :)
>
> FYI, I am using Lynx v2.8.5dev.16 (01 Jun 2003) which is so old. Maybe
> that's the problem. As for Links, it is not Links! It's actually ELinks
> v0.9.2 (even "man links" confirms it)! Woah. The ELinks I was compiled
> and used was v0.11.6 (built on Mar 30 2009 08:10:59). I wonder why older
> ELinks was better. Weird.
>

I'm using lynx version 2.8.7rel.1 (05 July 2009), which is straight from the
apt repository for Debian Squeeze. Probably not a big difference...

--
indi

Ant

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Aug 8, 2009, 7:20:56 PM8/8/09
to
On 8/8/2009 3:32 PM PT, Indi typed:

OK and thanks. :)
--
"When an ant gets wings, it loses its head." --Bosnian Proverb

Indi

unread,
Aug 8, 2009, 7:49:20 PM8/8/09
to
On 2009-08-08, Ant <ANT...@zimage.com> wrote:
> On 8/8/2009 3:32 PM PT, Indi typed:>
>>
>> I'm using lynx version 2.8.7rel.1 (05 July 2009), which is straight from the
>> apt repository for Debian Squeeze. Probably not a big difference...
>
> OK and thanks. :)
>

Actually I should thank you, as I hadn't really looked into making the
rendering of html messages totally perfect and was settling for the
"good enough" I had from elinks. :)

--
indi

Ant

unread,
Aug 8, 2009, 8:14:44 PM8/8/09
to
On 8/8/2009 4:49 PM PT, Indi typed:

>>> I'm using lynx version 2.8.7rel.1 (05 July 2009), which is straight from the
>>> apt repository for Debian Squeeze. Probably not a big difference...
>>
>> OK and thanks. :)
>
> Actually I should thank you, as I hadn't really looked into making the
> rendering of html messages totally perfect and was settling for the
> "good enough" I had from elinks. :)

:)
--
"He who runs from the white ant may stumble upon the stinging ant."
--Nigeria

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