138568 - Options for Save As Text

Status: NEW

(Core :: DOM: Serializers, enhancement, P5)

Description

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Navigator now allows to save webpages as plaintext. The converter tries to
perserve as much semantic informations as possible. In some cases, however, the
webpages abuses HTML or uses some tags excessively. Also, some users seem to
prefer to have only being saved the text they see in the browser window, willing
to accept a certain level of data loss.

Some of the options in question are (not all are filed as bug yet):
- Save URLs inline, as footnotes (bug 46990) or not at all
- Save URLs of embedded images
- Output plaintext structual tags like *emphasis* for <strong>emphasis</strong>

There is bug 23582 filed about creating some prefs UI to allow to customize the
options. However, I am not sure, if that cuts it, because the choice of options
might depend on the type of content, goal (e.g. intended recipeint of the
plaintext) and the HTML used. This bug is about discussing, if we should have
some kind of inline UI, which allows the user to select these options during the
saving process; and if so, how it should look like.

Ideally, I am thinking of someting like integrated Print Setup / Print Preview,
where you can choose the options in a dialog and (optionally) see the result
immediately before saving the file.

Comment 1

[Heikki Toivonen (remove -bugzilla when emailing directly)]

I think it would be enough to just add

* Save As Text with Links 

or something like that added to the list of save modes in the Save As dialog
which would effectivively be what we now claim to be Save As Text. That way Save
As Text option would work like it always did (in earlier Netscape versions and
IE as well), and the new mode would save URLs etc. 99.99999% of people would be
happy.

Pref options would be needlessly complicated, and we would never be able to come
up with fully configurable options anyway.

Comment 2

[Ben Bucksch (:BenB)]

Some people were alrealdy calling for removing the *bold* stars. Some may want
*bold*, but no URL.
What about links as footnotes? Some people (incl. myself) like that, at least in
some situtation?
See what I mean?

That being said, I don't object to have 2 options in the SaveAs dialog format
dropdown, called "Text without Links" and "Text with Links", as intermediate
solution.

Comment 3

[Alfonso Martinez]

*** Bug 146951 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4

[Hector Fabio Meza]

I think that an option that saves the text like it's seen in the browser window
would be a nice enhancement, since it would make saved text pages easier to read. 

Is this be what "save without links" would do?

Comment 5

[Jens Stutte [:jstutte]]

Bulk-downgrade of unassigned, untouched DOM/Storage bug's priority.

If you have reason to believe, this is wrong, please write a comment and ni :jstutte.