Subject: Re: bug#43166: The issues.guix.gnu.org is hard to read in emacs-w3m.

From: Ricardo Wurmus <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2020 23:53:06 +0200

zimoun <[email-masked]> writes:

> Dear Mark,
>
> On Mon, 14 Sep 2020 at 22:58, Mark H Weaver <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>> For what it's worth: not everyone uses Emacs, and it would be good to
>> support users who choose to use simpler software.  I guess that it would
>> be quite easy to modify the software behind 'issues.guix.gnu.org' to
>> generate HTML that works well with simpler web browsers, so I'd prefer
>> to keep this bug open.  What do you think?
>
> I am not sure to understand.  Something that generates HTML that works
> well with simpler web browsers is <https://debbugs.gnu.org>, isn't it?
> From what I understand, the aim (and "raison d'étre) of
> <issues.guix.gnu.org> is to generate what is considered as "modern
> webapp".
>
> Therefore, what is the concrete request?
>
>  - read the Debbugs with a simple web browser?  Then the answer is
> <debbugs.gnu.org>.
>  - add a button in <issues.gnu.org> saying "simple html there" and
> redirecting to <debbugs.gnu.org>?  If yes, the source code to tweak is
> there <https://git.elephly.net/gitweb.cgi?p=software/mumi.git> and I
> agree it would be quite easy; I will give a try if no one beats me.
> :-)

As the primary author of mumi (the software behind issues.guix.gnu.org)
I agree with Mark and think this is worth fixing.  I don’t want people
to have to use debbugs.gnu.org with its different features when we could
just make issues.guix.gnu.org do the right thing on simpler browsers.

issues.guix.gnu.org is supposed to offer a “superior” experience to
debbugs.gnu.org — it is supposed to be sufficient to replace it, not to
be merely an alternative view; while a primarily goal is indeed to make
it look “pretty” (i.e. some font and spacing improvements and very
subjective style changes that lean on what many users of Github and
Gitlab may be familiar with), it also provides features that
debbugs.gnu.org does not, such as listing “forgotten” issues, to search
without a somewhat complicated form, or the ability to comment from a
browser.

There is no good reason why this should not be usable by people who use
a simpler browser (I’m one of these people on some days).  If it turns
out to be tricky to implement or to cause a degraded experience for
those who use popular browsers we can still close this, but I think we
should at least try.

-- 
Ricardo