4 ms·

I was just thinking about this. They're going for gold, but I think there's an easy solution that incrementally improves on the current situation without all th

I was just thinking about this. They're going for gold, but I think there's an easy solution that incrementally improves on the current situation without all the effort. Right now you can download a webpage on most web browsers. It saves the html file and an associated folder. It would be cool if the web browsers placed that file and associated folder into a zip folder with a special file extension, and then the browser could read it on a double click as if you opened the html file. Yes, I know it's limited. But dead simple. The format could evolve and get more bells and whistles over time. Others mentioned epub. I do wish more sites offered epub downloads alongside or instead of pdf. Maybe browsers can do this, and maybe it'd be better than the simpler solution I suggested, but there are pros and cons to weigh here.

__jonas 3y ago
You can already do this by just inlining all the assets into a single HTML file. This browser addon does that for example: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/single-file/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/single-file/ The only downside I can see to what you propose is the file size overhead of base64 encoding the assets.
- gildas 3y ago
  You can save pages a self-extracting pages to produce compact pages, see [1]. [1] https://gildas-lormeau.github.io/singlefile-updates/version-1-22.html#:~:text=What%20Are%20Self%2DExtracting%20ZIP,to%20be%20enabled%20for%20viewing https://gildas-lormeau.github.io/singlefile-updates/version-....
  - __jonas 3y ago
    Oh that's a great feature! Fantastic extension by the way, thank you very much for your work.
djbusby 3y ago
Like the MHT files from help system on Windows (back in the day)?
- felixfbecker 3y ago
  The nice thing about MHTML is that compared to just a ZIP of files it is fully plain text and includes HTTP headers so that everything can be rendered the exact same way a browser would when served from a server. The headers can store additional metadata for each resource. It's also guaranteed to never go away because it uses the exact same way emails are encoded.
- horacemorace 3y ago
  Yes. This is already standard. Maybe a user space program could treat mhts like a little filesystem mounted at pwd. The size blows up but who cares.
Springtime 3y ago
> It would be cool if the web browsers placed that file and associated folder into a zip folder with a special file extension, and then the browser could read it on a double click as if you opened the html file. I always like to mention that that Chromium currently allows saving to MTHML (a self-contained single HTML file, with attachments/images). In Vivaldi (Chromium based) the appropriate launch argument (`--save-page-as-mhtml`) is enabled by default. Firefox used to support MHTML as well until 2017 via an addon. Now days on FF an alternative called SingleFile saves to a literally renamed zip, for a similar purpose.

__jonas 3y ago

You can already do this by just inlining all the assets into a single HTML file. This browser addon does that for example: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/single-file/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/single-file/ The only downside I can see to what you propose is the file size overhead of base64 encoding the assets.

gildas 3y ago
You can save pages a self-extracting pages to produce compact pages, see [1]. [1] https://gildas-lormeau.github.io/singlefile-updates/version-1-22.html#:~:text=What%20Are%20Self%2DExtracting%20ZIP,to%20be%20enabled%20for%20viewing https://gildas-lormeau.github.io/singlefile-updates/version-....
- __jonas 3y ago
  Oh that's a great feature! Fantastic extension by the way, thank you very much for your work.

djbusby 3y ago

Like the MHT files from help system on Windows (back in the day)?

felixfbecker 3y ago
The nice thing about MHTML is that compared to just a ZIP of files it is fully plain text and includes HTTP headers so that everything can be rendered the exact same way a browser would when served from a server. The headers can store additional metadata for each resource. It's also guaranteed to never go away because it uses the exact same way emails are encoded.
horacemorace 3y ago
Yes. This is already standard. Maybe a user space program could treat mhts like a little filesystem mounted at pwd. The size blows up but who cares.

Springtime 3y ago

> It would be cool if the web browsers placed that file and associated folder into a zip folder with a special file extension, and then the browser could read it on a double click as if you opened the html file. I always like to mention that that Chromium currently allows saving to MTHML (a self-contained single HTML file, with attachments/images). In Vivaldi (Chromium based) the appropriate launch argument (`--save-page-as-mhtml`) is enabled by default. Firefox used to support MHTML as well until 2017 via an addon. Now days on FF an alternative called SingleFile saves to a literally renamed zip, for a similar purpose.