Re: [dev] [surf] next release

* Uriel <lost.goblin_AT_gmail.com> [2009-10-24 06:21]:
> 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>:
> > 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.

Exactly. There is hardly a better way to say this.

At the end of the day, a browser is a tool like any other -- it filters the
data it gets and writes/shows results which may be used by (useful for)
other tools.

I love, for instance, `lynx -stdin -dump | grep ...` and have always wished
to be able to interact in similar way with a visual browser. I can imagine
many use cases -- from source viewing to saving rendered page as image.
Same about sessions or cookies or whatever a browser is supposed to manage.

cheers

-- 
 stanio_