Re: [dev] [surf] next release

On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 9:08 AM, Anselm R Garbe <anselm_AT_garbe.us> wrote:
> 2009/10/21 Uriel <lost.goblin_AT_gmail.com>:
>> Surf should *not* handle downloads or display source, this are clearly
>> and obviously best handled by external tools and there is zero reason
>> for them to be part of any browser.
>
> I disagree with downloads, because several stuff can't be download
> without dealing with a valid session and it is a pain to download
> stuff that requires session info using wget.

Wget can use the browser's cookies, so in theory this should not be a
problem, but you are probably right that I underestimated how
braindamaged the web is and there might be sites where making this
work would be tricky.

> I have no strong feeling about source viewing, doesn't need to be
> build-in, but since it's already implemented by webkit the source
> viewing and profiling info of WebKit might be worth being made
> accessible through surf, it'll help those who have to debug some web
> stuff from time to time or that are masochists about analysing JS and
> overall download performance similar to firebug. Usually no external
> tool can provide this information correctly.

That might be the case, but none of those things are the job of a web
browser, and if somebody
wants to do that kind of work, they can install some braindead
browsers that supports all that crap. And just because webkit
'implements' most of it is no excuse, the cost is not just in code,
but in complexity of interface. Something as insignificant and lame as
source viewing is added to surf, and we already have got people
reporting problems with it.

Also 'view source' is an instance of a much more general issue:
passing the contents of the current page to an external program. This
should be supported as this fits well with the core function of a
browser, displaying the source of a page does not.

To put a more concrete example: perhaps somebody wants to look at the
source using less(1), or rio's win, or perhaps the user just wants to
save (cat > foo.html) the source, or god know what, maybe one wants to
pass the source to a script that extracts the img links from the
source and downloads them, or billion other possibilities all of which
should be supported but should in no way be built into surf.

uriel

>
> Kind regards,
> Anselm
>
>
Received on Sat Oct 24 2009 - 04:20:21 UTC