[Users] Fresh Installation of Claws-Mail

[Jerry]

On Sat, 2 May 2020 16:17:00 +0200, Andrej Kacian stated:
>On Sat, 2 May 2020 10:06:44 -0400
>Jerry <jerry at seibercom.net> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 2 May 2020 15:37:26 +0200, Andrej Kacian stated:  
>> >On Sat, 2 May 2020 07:44:04 -0400
>> >Jerry <jerry at seibercom.net> wrote:
>> >    
>> >> I certainly do not want to offend anyone; however, 'dillo' sucks.
>> >> I don't know why the claws-mail team chose it for their HTML
>> >> engine. As far as I can tell, it is not even maintained. I have
>> >> never used the 'LiteHTML' plug-in. I have heard that at best it is
>> >> mediocre but never-the-less, better than 'dillo.' The 'fancy'
>> >> plug-in worked exceptionally well.      
>> >
>> >You can thank all the "web for everything" people for making the
>> >HTML standard so complex and convoluted that it takes a team of
>> >dozens, if not hundreds of people in order to implement a fully
>> >compliant HTML renderer. The majority of rendering complexity is
>> >due to the byzantine rules of CSS layouting.
>> >
>> >All the big HTML renderers (Webkit, Chrome, Firefox, ...) have this
>> >kind of manpower and budget to maintain it. In comparison, Dillo is
>> >a work of perhaps half a dozen people, and Litehtml is work of just
>> >one person.
>> >
>> >I myself find the Litehtml plugin sufficient for the simple HTML
>> >layouts of blog posts I read via their RSS feeds, and the occasional
>> >invoice e-mail. Where it often falls down hard is commercial spam,
>> >which tend to be very heavy on CSS layout. Then again, not being
>> >able to read commercial spam can probably be considered a feature.
>> >:)
>> >
>> >I get that not everyone's use of HTML mail is as basic as mine, so
>> >Litehtml (or Dillo) plugins are not ideal for other people. However,
>> >there is nothing better, given the dependencies and requirements of
>> >available rendering engines.
>> >
>> >Options? Webkit via the Fancy plugin might see its big return in the
>> >GTK3 version of Claws Mail. There is Chrome Embedded Framework
>> >(CEF), which could also be "pluginized", if someone feels motivated
>> >enough to scratch that itch. As far as Firefox' engine, I don't
>> >think it is available to being embedded in a plugin.
>> >
>> >On MacOS, the apple's HTML engine could perhaps also be used in a
>> >plugin, but it will take a MacOS-friendly developer to write such a
>> >plugin.
>> >
>> >On Windows, neither the old, nor the new HTML engine are embeddable
>> >in the way Claws Mail needs.
>> >    
>> 
>> Andrej, over a decade ago, probably more, I used a product called
>> "Becky Internet Mail" <http://www.rimarts.co.jp/becky.htm> on a
>> Windows machine. It did then, and I am told, still does, employs MS
>> Explorer, now MS Edge as its HTML engine. Would that be an option for
>> claws-mail on under a Windows environment?
>>   
>
>Alas, not in a GTK application. I have actually tried embedding the
>MSHTML engine a while ago. I got a plugin kind-of-working, but it was
>very wonky, due to MSHTML having its own event loop and input handling,
>so it was sometimes stealing mouse clicks and key presses from Claws
>Mail, sometimes the other way around, it was often not scrolling and
>redrawing properly, etc... I should still have the source code
>somewhere, in case someone wants to work on it, but I think it's a dead
>end.
>
>And even if such plugin could be made, it would become obsolete soon,
>since Microsoft is switching to the Chrome engine for its browser, and
>will therefore not maintain their own HTML engine in the future.

You would be referencing "Microsoft Edge Dev"
<https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/>. I have been
using it as my default browser in Windows for over 6 months now. It is
updated weekly. You can actually comment on or make suggestions or
report problems directly to the team and receive feedback from them. It
has become my favorite browser. I like it better than Firefox under any
environment. In any case, perhaps you might be able to investigate the
possibility of using that engine in the MS version of claws-mail. Their
development team would probably be happy to assist you since they want
to promote and expand the use of this browser.

-- 
Jerry
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