How should I read HTML email?

[Luc]

Can you recommend any particular way to read HTML email? Any specific
package?

I want it to read the HTML content and print it in plain text form
or something not too fancy.

I don't need to handle links and images right now, but that may be
useful in the future.

I do need to be able to read/view/display tables though.

Please note that I intend to do it in an Android app so I can't rely
on external applications like I would on my Linux desktop.

--
Luc
>>

[saitology9]

I am not sure why this reminds me of a meme from a long time ago: every
application grows until they become a text editor. A famous person said
it but who it was escapes me.

In general, let the native app's handle the email for you. If you really
want to, there are two packages for this: pop3 and imap. They should be
available for Andorid too.

[saitology9]

On 1/13/2023 6:16 PM, saitology9 wrote:
> On 1/13/2023 5:34 PM, Luc wrote:
>> Can you recommend any particular way to read HTML email? Any specific
>> package?
>>
>> I want it to read the HTML content and print it in plain text form
>> or something not too fancy.
>>

Not sure if you were only interested in displaying html. If so, there
is iwidgets::scrolledhtml widget that might get you going.

[Luc]

On Fri, 13 Jan 2023 18:16:13 -0500, saitology9 wrote:

> I am not sure why this reminds me of a meme from a long time ago: every
> application grows until they become a text editor. A famous person said
> it but who it was escapes me.

Sounds like something xkcd would say.

> In general, let the native app's handle the email for you. If you really
> want to, there are two packages for this: pop3 and imap. They should be
> available for Andorid too.

Yes, I have successfully logged in and retrieve messages using the pop3
package. But the very first message was HTML, which was in fact very
appropriate to remind me that many (most?) messages nowadays are HTML.

> Not sure if you were only interested in displaying html. If so, there
> is iwidgets::scrolledhtml widget that might get you going.

Yes. My biggest obstacle right now will be the HTML content. I will
investigate that package. Thank you.

--
Luc
>>

[Luc]

Hmm.

"The Scrolledhtml is almost compliant with the HTML version 3.2 specification.
There are some image rendering that doesn't work, and table support is not
fully integrated."

https://incrtcl.sourceforge.net/iwidgets/iwidgets/scrolledhtml.html


:-\


--
Luc
>>

[saitology9]

I think there are at least two more: one is tkhtml and the other I don't
recall at the moment. The wiki might give you better results.

[Ricardo kozmate.net]

Em 14/01/23 00:17, Luc escreveu:

> On Fri, 13 Jan 2023 18:16:13 -0500, saitology9 wrote:
>
>> I am not sure why this reminds me of a meme from a long time ago: every
>> application grows until they become a text editor. A famous person said
>> it but who it was escapes me.
>
> Sounds like something xkcd would say.
>
>

Yes it does sound like it, yet probably not. I vaguely recall reading a
similar sentence, something like "every application will grow it sends
emails", back in... late 1990s?

I'm not good with time, but it sure was a while ago :-)

--
{ricardo from kozmate.net}

[Ricardo kozmate.net]

Em 14/01/23 21:54, Ricardo kozmate.net escreveu:
> late 1990s

At least 2003

"Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail."

https://web.archive.org/web/20061011025302/http://jargon-file.org/archive/jargon-4.4.7.dos.txt

--
{ricardo from kozmate.net}

[Joerg Mertens]

"Ricardo kozmate.net" <ric...@kozmate.net> writes:

> Yes it does sound like it, yet probably not. I vaguely recall reading
> a similar sentence, something like "every application will grow it
> sends emails", back in... late 1990s?

This is Jamie Zawinski's Law, see

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski#Zawinski's_Law

Joerg