[Users] HTML presentation plugin

[Andrej Kacian]

On Sun, 3 Dec 2017 11:13:00 +0200
Shai Berger <shai at platonix.com> wrote:

> Is there work going on to restore this functionality?
> 
> If not, and I want to try, where would be a good place to start?

Hi,

in the short term, your best bet is probably to compile the
(correct version of) WebKit library on your own, and compile Claws Mail
with the Fancy plugin enabled. That will allow you to keep using Fancy
indefinitely into the future, no matter what your distro does, at the
cost of increased maintenance around keeping your mail client updated.

In the long term, there are two viable options:

 - Fancy was removed by many distros because the WebKitGtk version it
   uses is insecure, and any newer, supported WebKitGtk version
   only works with GTK3. So you can help out with porting to GTK3. Once
   Claws Mail supports GTK3, we can update Fancy to use a newer version
   of WebKitGtk, and distros can then package Claws Mail with this
   plugin enabled again.
   There is an ongoing effort by several people to make this happen,
   feel free to join in.

 - Write a plugin using different HTML rendering engine.
   Possible candidates that I know of are Chrome Embedded Framework
   (CEF) and LiteHTML. (Anyone knows about more? It has to have a C or
   C++ API.) We will be more than happy to help out.
   We already have a very basic LiteHTML plugin in the works, but there
   is another issue - it takes a lot of work to have a renderer that
   would support correctly display all the weird stuff that various
   HTML email generators out there can throw at it. WebKit is a product
   of many people over many years, and it shows. LiteHTML is a work of
   a single developer, and sometimes incorrectly displays more
   complicated HTML layouts. It also lacks the possibility to select
   text with your mouse.

If you want to help, the best way to start is to get yourself acquainted
with the code, and then it is up to you where and how you want to
help. :)

Regards,
-- 
Andrej