Return to BSD News archive
Xref: sserve comp.infosystems.www.browsers.x:580 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:2318 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.uwa.edu.au!not-for-mail From: carl@oversteer.library.uwa.edu.au (Carl Brewer) Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.www.browsers.x,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Netscape - this is ridiculous Date: 22 Jun 1995 11:33:10 +0800 Organization: UWA Library Lines: 42 Message-ID: <3sao9m$7dd@oversteer.library.uwa.edu.au> References: <1995Jun18.022947.20174@rhrk.uni-kl.de> <JWZ.95Jun19165655@abattoir.netscape.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: oversteer.library.uwa.edu.au In article <JWZ.95Jun19165655@abattoir.netscape.com>, Jamie Zawinski <jwz@netscape.com> wrote: >In comp.infosystems.www.browsers.x Christoph Weber-Fahr <weber@rhrk.uni-kl.de> wrote: >> >> can anybody give me a good reason why Netscape Mac/Windows has nice >> comfortable configuration dialogs for helper applications, while >> Netscape/X doesn't, but wants me to create obscure ascii files with >> undocumented syntax? > >Because, given the existing standards we had to get along with on Unix >(the mime.types and mailcap files, which are not in common use on the >other platforms) adding that interface was a lot more work on Unix than >on the other platforms. I wanted to do it; I didn't have time. That >sucks, and I'm sorry. Consider this as a vote for retaining the present situation. We use metamail here, and it's right and proper for the mime.types and mailcap files to be set by the site admin for everyone, and if they want to change it, a 5 year old could work out how to edit their own, that overrides the system default. Don't break it, it works well. >> This is utterly ridiculous! No, I'm not familiar with Metamail internals, >> and, given the ridiculous state of (not existing) documentation, I have not >> the slightest intention to learn how to write mailcaps or mimetypes files. > >And the Unix world needs more people like you full of righteous indignation >at the kind of crap they're expected to put up with (I'm completely serious.) If you (netscape) decide to come up with some wonderful point and drool configuration system for MIME types (mailcap etc), please try not to break anything else that uses those files. The "UNIX world" is full of people who need to have things working together. (open systems, eh?!) -- carl@oversteer.library.uwa.edu.au #include <generic_disclaimer.h> finger cbrewer@uniwa.uwa.edu.au for my pgp public key