From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Chong Yidong Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: An Emacs plug-in for a browser (Firefox?) Date: Sun, 07 Sep 2008 14:29:57 -0400 Message-ID: <8763p795cq.fsf@cyd.mit.edu> References: <18624.40059.414121.633475@gargle.gargle.HOWL> <48C0BB3A.4080201@pajato.com> <87zlmnezy9.fsf@shellarchive.co.uk> <48C0FC53.4020806@gmail.com> <6fa54e4e0809050420i5132ace5red5a011b69ecd1ed@mail.gmail.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1220812052 3729 80.91.229.12 (7 Sep 2008 18:27:32 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 18:27:32 +0000 (UTC) Cc: pmr@pajato.com, lennart.borgman@gmail.com, joakim@verona.se, emacs-devel@gnu.org, Stefan Monnier , smeuuh@gmail.com, raman@users.sourceforge.net, phil@shellarchive.co.uk To: rms@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Sep 07 20:28:26 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1KcOzo-0001Xi-4f for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:28:24 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:35315 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1KcOyo-0004Ph-Ab for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 07 Sep 2008 14:27:22 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1KcOyh-0004L1-VC for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 07 Sep 2008 14:27:15 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1KcOyg-0004GQ-7D for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 07 Sep 2008 14:27:15 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=59127 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1KcOyg-0004G7-1j for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 07 Sep 2008 14:27:14 -0400 Original-Received: from cyd.mit.edu ([18.115.2.24]:48168) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1KcOyd-0002lL-4U; Sun, 07 Sep 2008 14:27:11 -0400 Original-Received: by cyd.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 1000) id C37A457E2BF; Sun, 7 Sep 2008 14:29:57 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: (Richard M. Stallman's message of "Sun, 07 Sep 2008 13:39:38 -0400") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.0.60 (gnu/linux) X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:103637 Archived-At: "Richard M. Stallman" writes: > It looks like you are proposing a new feature which consists of > editing HTML and viewng the formatted results on the side. Is that > correct? > > It did not occur to me that that is what people were talking about, > because it doesn't seem like much of an advance. If we want it, the > clean and simple implemenation is to run the browser in a separate > process. It could do the display in a window provided by Emacs, or in > its own window. I think the main point is that nowadays people use the web a *lot*. Personally, the time I spend using a web browser is several orders of magnitude more than the time I spend using a word processor. Switching constantly between Emacs and Firefox (e.g., by making Emacs open links via a separate Firefox application) is inefficient. By analogy, we provide comint interfaces between Emacs and programs like gdb, so that people can continue using those external programs while staying in the Emacs environment. The difference here is that the relevant output of programs like gdb is text, while the relevant output of a web browser is an interactive graphical display. (Note the "interactive" part, which is why approaches like rendering into PDF aren't very useful.) Thus, to answer your original question, "embedding" means delegating the contents of an Emacs window (or part of an Emacs window) to a web browser process, such as Mozilla Gecko or Webkit.