[OT] Re: capture with iceweasel/firefox -- nothing works

[Matt Lundin <mdl@imapmail.org>]

Philip Hudson <phil.hudson@iname.com> writes:

> On 4 June 2016 at 02:23, Samuel Wales <samologist@gmail.com> wrote:
>> over many years, i have been trying to get org-protocol (or
>> anything similar) to work, and it is not working reliably.
>> that's why i want this feature to work so much.
> ...
>>   *what is the most reliable set of instructions or code to
>>   get iceweasel to work with org?*
>
> Ordinarily my advice would be: Don't. Use Conkeror instead.
>
> However, I see that keyboard-orientation and JavaScript are exactly
> what you don't want, which is a pity. Org-capture from Conkeror is
> bulletproof for me, even with Emacs server running on a different host
> on the same LAN segment.
>
> Conkeror uses the same browser engine as Firefox, so some FF
> extensions work with it, but with an "Emacsified" keyboard-oriented
> front end (M-x, M-:, C-u, C-g, etc) -- all dynamically configurable
> and extensible, though in JavaScript not Elisp. The JavaScripting
> framework uses familiar Elisp idioms wherever possible, like hooks,
> `provide' and `require', for example.

Conkeror is great. I used it for over seven years. However, I think it's
important to note (for anyone thinking of investing time in setting it
up) that conkeror's future is uncertain given Mozilla's planned
deprecation of XUL, its abandonment of xulrunner, and its lack of
official support for using Firefox's browser engine to run third party
apps. This is what a Mozilla developer said in response to a broken -app
flag (which conkeror requires to run) in FF 48 nightly: "This bug isn't
high on the official Mozilla priority list. We don't use -app or have
any testing for it, so it's likely to break."[fn:1] Conkeror is still a
good browser, but if you switch to it, expect to find several broken
features (viewing page source and text files internally, managing
permissions, etc.) and more turbulence in the future.

Matt

[fn:1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1271574