I'm one those people would like to browse the web from within Emacs,
but I haven't found a browser that I'm happy with. Can anyone
recommend a good browser setup for XEmacs on WinXP?

W3 is a great idea, since it doesn't have to interface with an
external program, but it has problems. IME, it's slow to load, often
has a hard time with graphics, can't handle style-sheets, and from
what I gather, nobody is working on it anymore. When I tried it on
Linux, it seemed to work to better though.

I've recently tried Emacs-W3M (with the Cygwin version of W3M), which
is much faster, and seems to be more robust, but before I go about
beating it into shape, I thought I would ask if there are any better
alternatives out there. What about running a text-only browser in a
terminal buffer? I tried that with Lynx but it didn't work.

On Sat, 22 Apr 2006 17:28:04 -0400, xyblor <fake@invalid.email> wrote:

> I've recently tried Emacs-W3M (with the Cygwin version of W3M), which
> is much faster, and seems to be more robust, but before I go about
> beating it into shape, I thought I would ask if there are any better
> alternatives out there. What about running a text-only browser in a
> terminal buffer? I tried that with Lynx but it didn't work.

I use lynx regularly as an alternative to W3M.  Adding the line

  (setq browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-lynx-emacs)

to .emacs makes all "browse-url" functions use lynx.

Best,
Cezar.

ionescu@pc84.pik-potsdam.de writes:

> On Sat, 22 Apr 2006 17:28:04 -0400, xyblor <fake@invalid.email> wrote:
> 
> > I've recently tried Emacs-W3M (with the Cygwin version of W3M), which
> > is much faster, and seems to be more robust, but before I go about
> > beating it into shape, I thought I would ask if there are any better
> > alternatives out there. What about running a text-only browser in a
> > terminal buffer? I tried that with Lynx but it didn't work.
> 
> I use lynx regularly as an alternative to W3M.  Adding the line
> 
>   (setq browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-lynx-emacs)
> 
> to .emacs makes all "browse-url" functions use lynx.
> 
> Best,
> Cezar.

I use Lynx quite a bit in my browsing with this method. There are two
problems. One is that it always asks for a url. To get around this I
made a macro so that it always starts directly with my
~/lynx_bookmarks.html file by inserting that url. Makes things a lot
easier. You can generate this file by using Lynx as a stand-alone
program. It's also directly editable.

The biggest drawback I've found is when going from one web page to
another. Sometimes the first page will partly stick around unless the
new one directly overprints it. On those I use the C-l function to
redraw the screen.

It's possible, though, this might have something to do with my
machine.

--Rod
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