"Interactive" vs non-interactive browsing is spot on,
thanks very much for this.
The way you outline these things (also considering the
code presented in many
of your previous comments) is a pristine example
of Unix-y design principles as laid out by E. S. Raymond.
I would probably be really happy with an internet that
only consists of FTP and email, so I'm definitely in the
"non-interactive" boat, too. But, due to shallow knowledge
(curiosity, but no CS education), the "outside the browser"
experience has mostly been ssh, ftp, and wget'ing things
with some simple
scripts. The code you've posted in your
comments is a huge inspiration to me, really.
It is also interesting how we (or, I) tend to consider a
web browser the beginning point of internet use.
Downloading PDFs, etc -- everything starts from a HTML page
that is rendered to us by the browser.
In your examples, it is the exact opposite: the text
browser or pager appears to be the ending point of
an internet session. Because of your tiny, modular tools,
you can decide "on the run" what to do with the data
during the next step. This is simply following old,
time tested Unix principles, but it is fascinating to
really see something like this in action, in such a
streamlined way, when it comes to web browsing.
Perhaps it is even more precise to say that, by definition,
the Unix pipes
have neither an end point nor a starting point?
It's all just stream of data (text), directed to where you want
in each turn with your helper scripts. Utilizing this with day-to-day
web usage is something people rarely do in 2022, I guess.
So, yeah, I confess being somewhat blown away by your stuff.
Re: (E)Links' shortcut keys: funny you bring this up.
I took a fresh look at ELinks over some years, and
I did think that * and \ are really nice just yesterday.
ELinks does render some things better than w3m,
and my distro (Tiny Core Linux) has a build with zero
dependencies (0.3 MB, just bare minimum of features, no TLS/SSL
etc). With this setup, I'm really tempted to try out the "outside the browser"
internet experience you've described. And that I've been
thinking about for years.
As for the UI, I think I'm really only annoyed by the way
URLs are entered in ELinks, into the curses dialog box in the middle
of the screen. In this regard, w3m's command line feels
more natural. I might try the :ex mode command line again,
and the lua scripting, even though I don't want to have
a big build with nonessential options.
Then again, configuring ELinks via the menus is
actually a fairly pleasant experience IMO. In w3m, I'm
always afraid of pressing some key I didn't remember.
In Elinks, I can always bring up the menu and fix things
when I messed something up by accident. So it's actually fine.
Also, the minimal ELinks build in my distro keeps the menus
clean and simple, there's no "feature creep".
And, obviously, a browsing experience that doesn't include
the (though only barely irritating) lag caused by
"accepting cookies" is extremely nice.
I would probably be really happy with an internet that only consists of FTP and email, so I'm definitely in the "non-interactive" boat, too. But, due to shallow knowledge (curiosity, but no CS education), the "outside the browser" experience has mostly been ssh, ftp, and wget'ing things with some simple scripts. The code you've posted in your comments is a huge inspiration to me, really.
It is also interesting how we (or, I) tend to consider a web browser the beginning point of internet use. Downloading PDFs, etc -- everything starts from a HTML page that is rendered to us by the browser. In your examples, it is the exact opposite: the text browser or pager appears to be the ending point of an internet session. Because of your tiny, modular tools, you can decide "on the run" what to do with the data during the next step. This is simply following old, time tested Unix principles, but it is fascinating to really see something like this in action, in such a streamlined way, when it comes to web browsing.
Perhaps it is even more precise to say that, by definition, the Unix pipes have neither an end point nor a starting point? It's all just stream of data (text), directed to where you want in each turn with your helper scripts. Utilizing this with day-to-day web usage is something people rarely do in 2022, I guess. So, yeah, I confess being somewhat blown away by your stuff.
Re: (E)Links' shortcut keys: funny you bring this up. I took a fresh look at ELinks over some years, and I did think that * and \ are really nice just yesterday. ELinks does render some things better than w3m, and my distro (Tiny Core Linux) has a build with zero dependencies (0.3 MB, just bare minimum of features, no TLS/SSL etc). With this setup, I'm really tempted to try out the "outside the browser" internet experience you've described. And that I've been thinking about for years.
As for the UI, I think I'm really only annoyed by the way URLs are entered in ELinks, into the curses dialog box in the middle of the screen. In this regard, w3m's command line feels more natural. I might try the :ex mode command line again, and the lua scripting, even though I don't want to have a big build with nonessential options.
Then again, configuring ELinks via the menus is actually a fairly pleasant experience IMO. In w3m, I'm always afraid of pressing some key I didn't remember. In Elinks, I can always bring up the menu and fix things when I messed something up by accident. So it's actually fine. Also, the minimal ELinks build in my distro keeps the menus clean and simple, there's no "feature creep".
And, obviously, a browsing experience that doesn't include the (though only barely irritating) lag caused by "accepting cookies" is extremely nice.