Re: LYNX-DEV External filters (was: converting Pine addressbook to html)

[Klaus Weide]

On Tue, 25 Feb 1997, Jim Spath (Webmaster Jim) wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Feb 1997, Klaus Weide wrote:
> > Tom Zerucha wrote:
> > > Jim Spath wrote:
> > > > Tom Zerucha wrote:
> > > > > Since we have multiple bookmarks, could there be read-only bookmarks 
> > > > > that
> > > > > take the output of a command, e.g.
> > > > > Bookmark P = "#!/bin/sh;cat ~/.addressbook | pineab2html"
> > > > Ahh.  So we need Lynx to be able to read from stdin, or a pipe, to 
> > > > extend
> > > Different locus of change.  If I already use Pine (since I don't think
> > > Lynx supports pop3: URLs), I might want to maintain my mail reader
> > > separately from Lynx, but be able to mailto: using the file.
> > ... 
> > [ I am commenting mostly on the last sentence, I haven't tried to
> > understand exactly the exact use of this w.r.t. bookmarks, pine, etc. ]
> 
> Okay, I've now learned how to use lynxcgi :-)  From some of the tasks
> under discussion (but not tables), this is the Lynx way to go. First, you
                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> must have LYNXCGI_LINKS defined in userdefs.h. 

Yes, tables is what I had more in mind (and I assume Tom, too).
So for what you wanted, a general filter mechanism (where Lynx pipes
a data stream to the stdin of an external program, and reads the external
program's stout for further processing) is not needed.

Aside from tabls support and maybe fixing-up-broken-HTML external filters,
an external filter pipe could also be used for handling compressed pages
(instead of the current use of a temporary file) - at least for gzip
format, just pipe a data stream through "gunzip -c -". 

> I've been checking out the latest NS beta, which, bizarrely, seems to
> encourage putting HTML tags into email messages.  

Well, what a surprise...

> So reading those
> messages, as well as being able to use embedded URLs in mail is a useful
> task.  I've modified an existing email-to-html filter program,
> "babymail.pl" so that it simply reads its stdin and generates html on
> stdout.  It's at http://www.bcpl.lib.md.us/~jspath/perl/sonofbabymail.pl.
>
[ details snipped ]
> 
> Did I mention you have to define  LYNXCGI_LINKS ? :-)

Nice application of lynxcgi:.  Maybe you can now start investigating
whether you can somehow make it understand the proposed mid: and cid: URL
schemes...  (see
   Linkname: MIME Encapsulation of Aggregate HTML Documents (mhtml)
       <URL: http://www.ietf.cnri.reston.va.us/ids.by.wg/mhtml.html>)

  Klaus

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