Re: [VM] html mail: both external and w3m?

[Uday Reddy]

emacs user writes:

> hello, Reading html mail using vm/w3m works pretty well for me most of the
> time, but occasionally I do want to use an external browser to view a
> message.  Pressing D and then $e on the attachment button then works well,
> except that the D step takes a very long time and I was wondering if
> that's just my setup...?  

I have this problem too.  I have it on my to-do list to investigate it.  One
guess is is that u-vm-color doesn't handle attachments well.  You might try
turning it off and seeing if it makes a difference.

A possible idea here is to *always* display buttons for non-text/plain
parts, so that we can easily fire up external viewers.  I will put it on the
wishlist.

> also, could anyone suggest how I might: (1)
> define a function that displays a given message using an external browser,
> so that I can bind it to some key; (2) is it possible to view every
> message both in the presentation buffer and in an external browser,
> simultaneously, side by side?  on a large monitor this may be a great
> option to have...?  cheers, E

There is no built-in function to display a message in an external viewer.
One has to get the button view first (using `D') and then do ']' and '$e'.
You can try making a keyboard macro for it if it is needed often.

Viewing the message in both VM and external browser is easy if it is a
multipart/alternative message.  Just set `vm-mime-multipart-show-method' to
`all' and use the external browser for html.  You get the plain text version
shown in VM and the html version shown externally.

If it is not a multipart/alternative message and the message has just one
text/html part, then there is currently no way to feed it to an external
viewer while also displaying it in VM.  

Cheers,
Uday