Feature Request: Support MS Web Archive Files

Discussion of features in Mozilla Firefox
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gardenerstouch
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Joined: July 4th, 2006, 3:54 pm

Feature Request: Support MS Web Archive Files

Post by gardenerstouch »

In my opinion, the only thing saving Firefox from perfection is the lack of support for MS's (I know.. it's a dirty word) web archive files (mht). I make extensive use of mht files to save web pages to my hard drive. It's the only thing that keeps me from using Firefox all the time.

Is this something that can even be done? Does Microsoft allow other programs to open these files?

Assuming it's possible, as long as you are going to have support for mht files, why not make it the default save option (as MS did in it's latest IE7 beta)? Why would anyone want to save a web page in anything other than an archive? It makes moving and copying these files so much easier, and reduces the clutter on your hard drive.
Unarmed
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Post by Unarmed »

This is <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18764" title="Bug 18764 - Full rfc2557 MHTML multipart/related support in BROWSER">bug 18764</a>. A stopgap solution is to install the MAF extension, which supports reading and writing MHT archives (as well as its built-in MAF format).
gardenerstouch
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Post by gardenerstouch »

It looks as though this might be my answer, at least until it gets written into Firefox anyway. I experimented with creating an MHT file in Firefox using MAF, but it would not open in IE, which is a feature I would need. Many of my files are passed to my students, and most of them would need to open them in IE.
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the-edmeister
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Post by the-edmeister »

Opened: 1999-11-13 - I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that Bug to be fixed anytime soon. There hasn't even been a meaningful comment posted in almost 2 years moving toward fixing it.

If anything, I think any future work should aim toward using the Open Document format (XML), rather provide any support to M$'s MHT format (MHTML). The future is not under MS's control any longer.


Ed
A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Mine has wandered off and I'm out looking for it.
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Thumper
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Post by Thumper »

At what point was RFC 2557 under Micro, err, $oft's control, the-edmeister? Spreading FUD isn't helping anyone.

As stated numerous times in the past, Thunderbird already contains all the required code to implement this (it's required for things like the .eml format) - it just hasn't been separated out of the spaghetti code it's in the middle of yet.

- Chris
Bonjess
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Joined: September 20th, 2006, 6:05 am

Post by Bonjess »

As a new user to the FireFox web Browser I as others have found that the "save as" file types does not extend to .mht the MS archive format.

As I use this format very frequently I find this to be a great inconvenience.
This means that the idea to change completely away from Internet Explorer is at this time a non starter. If this program is to be an alternative to MS, then the bug should be fixed whatever the new format will be.
jimspoon
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Joined: July 21st, 2005, 9:29 pm

Post by jimspoon »

thumper is right ... I keep reading on here that the MHT format is proprietary, but it is not ... it is based on RFC 2557.

There is an extension for saving MHT files from FF ..
http://maf.mozdev.org/

But this page says that "MAF 0.7.0 is currently under development and will be compatible with Firefox 1.5 only." I seem to recall reading somebody saying that MAF was working with FF 2? I guess the only way to know is to try it.

I save pages all the time in the MHT format. But if MAF won't work with FF2, there is still a workaround ...
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... 4E18B7AD2A

This utility is called an "Office add-in" but it works great as a standalone utility. It gives you a right-click option to convert an HTML file and its associated folder of files into a single MHT file.
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