Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
INTRODUCTION
If you want to save a web page simply and effectively for viewing later, or for sending to someone else so that they can view it too, an mht file is the way to go. The Mozilla family of browsers was always mht retarded as compared to Internet Explorer (yes, there are some things that IE actually does quite well, strange as it might seem), but Opera handles them brilliantly. (Not sure about Chrome. OK, I am sure about Chrome now 'cause I just checked. No prizes for guessing, every clueless dumbo's favourite browser still doesn't understand them, same as it doesn't understand anything else more complicated than a turnip.) Summary: an mht file is a very effective single-file copy of a web page. It includes text, graphics, layout, everything in one simple, easy-to-handle file.
PROBLEM
For some unknown reason, Thunderbird seems to think it understands and can display mht files. It can't. If you open one in Thunderbird, you get a blank page. Nothing on it. (Actually, a weird sort of blank page in a new window of its own - it doesn't open in the normal way; it's more like a new message windows than anything else.) But you don't want to open it in Thunderbird anyway; you just want to send it as an ordinary email attachment; or (if you are the receiver) open it in a competent web browser (Opera, or even IE if you must); or simply save it to disc for opening in a browser later. So you attach my_file.mht to your email and send it as a single attachment. But stupid Thunderbird at the other end tries to fiddle with the contents and the receiver gets 19 attachments: one is the original my_file.mht file complete in every way, the other 18 are component files Thunderbird stupidly extracts from the .mht and litters about the place. (The number of these varies according to the complexity of the web page you are sending; they are the usual things that make up a page: the main html, images, css files, and so on. You might get two or three, you can get 30 or 40.)
So the poor receiver gets something like 19 attachments, only one of which was intended. Or, as happened to me the other day, 5 .mht files (she sent me five web pages to read) and almost 200 other files! Now, as the receiver, you can do any of four things. If you happen to know that you only need *.mht, you can (1) hunt through what can be a very long unsorted list looking for the mht files and save them individually. (Typically, there is only one unless the sender sent more than one attachment.) Or, if you don't happen to know this bit of arcana, you have to (2) save the whole lot, individually, one by one unless you know that Thunderbird has a convenient "save all" button which will (3) save all attached files in one go. Obviously, with this third option, you need to make a new folder to save all these files into - which makes sending a single neat, convenient .mht file completely bloody pointless in the first place! The sender might just as well have saved the primitive way Chrome does it (my_file.html + many files in a my_file_files folder). Or (4), you can try to open the attachment in Thunderbird itself, which gives you a blank screen.
Massive fail, Mozilla.org.
All that Thunderbird has to do is stop pretending it knows how to handle .mht files and leave them the hell alone! Is that so hard?
Can't you just go into tools -> options -> attachments and tell it how to deal with them? (I.e., hand them to Opera or IE, the same way it hands .pdf files to Acrobat or Foxit.) Nope: there are several file types listed, but not .mht. There is no facility to add new ones! If you trawl around Google for long enough you can learn that you can add new types into that list by closing it and finding an attachment of the desired type and attempting to open it inside Thunderbird(a bit like the way you associate files in Windows Explorer). Only it doesn't work, 'cause if you do that with an mht file, Thunderbird just does the blank new window thing.
So, as far as I can tell, there is no answer. It doesn't even seem to be listed as a Thunderbird bug, at least not that I can find, but it surely needs fixing. I can't believe I'm the first person to discover it.
Any ideas?
If you want to save a web page simply and effectively for viewing later, or for sending to someone else so that they can view it too, an mht file is the way to go. The Mozilla family of browsers was always mht retarded as compared to Internet Explorer (yes, there are some things that IE actually does quite well, strange as it might seem), but Opera handles them brilliantly. (Not sure about Chrome. OK, I am sure about Chrome now 'cause I just checked. No prizes for guessing, every clueless dumbo's favourite browser still doesn't understand them, same as it doesn't understand anything else more complicated than a turnip.) Summary: an mht file is a very effective single-file copy of a web page. It includes text, graphics, layout, everything in one simple, easy-to-handle file.
PROBLEM
For some unknown reason, Thunderbird seems to think it understands and can display mht files. It can't. If you open one in Thunderbird, you get a blank page. Nothing on it. (Actually, a weird sort of blank page in a new window of its own - it doesn't open in the normal way; it's more like a new message windows than anything else.) But you don't want to open it in Thunderbird anyway; you just want to send it as an ordinary email attachment; or (if you are the receiver) open it in a competent web browser (Opera, or even IE if you must); or simply save it to disc for opening in a browser later. So you attach my_file.mht to your email and send it as a single attachment. But stupid Thunderbird at the other end tries to fiddle with the contents and the receiver gets 19 attachments: one is the original my_file.mht file complete in every way, the other 18 are component files Thunderbird stupidly extracts from the .mht and litters about the place. (The number of these varies according to the complexity of the web page you are sending; they are the usual things that make up a page: the main html, images, css files, and so on. You might get two or three, you can get 30 or 40.)
So the poor receiver gets something like 19 attachments, only one of which was intended. Or, as happened to me the other day, 5 .mht files (she sent me five web pages to read) and almost 200 other files! Now, as the receiver, you can do any of four things. If you happen to know that you only need *.mht, you can (1) hunt through what can be a very long unsorted list looking for the mht files and save them individually. (Typically, there is only one unless the sender sent more than one attachment.) Or, if you don't happen to know this bit of arcana, you have to (2) save the whole lot, individually, one by one unless you know that Thunderbird has a convenient "save all" button which will (3) save all attached files in one go. Obviously, with this third option, you need to make a new folder to save all these files into - which makes sending a single neat, convenient .mht file completely bloody pointless in the first place! The sender might just as well have saved the primitive way Chrome does it (my_file.html + many files in a my_file_files folder). Or (4), you can try to open the attachment in Thunderbird itself, which gives you a blank screen.
Massive fail, Mozilla.org.
All that Thunderbird has to do is stop pretending it knows how to handle .mht files and leave them the hell alone! Is that so hard?
Can't you just go into tools -> options -> attachments and tell it how to deal with them? (I.e., hand them to Opera or IE, the same way it hands .pdf files to Acrobat or Foxit.) Nope: there are several file types listed, but not .mht. There is no facility to add new ones! If you trawl around Google for long enough you can learn that you can add new types into that list by closing it and finding an attachment of the desired type and attempting to open it inside Thunderbird(a bit like the way you associate files in Windows Explorer). Only it doesn't work, 'cause if you do that with an mht file, Thunderbird just does the blank new window thing.
So, as far as I can tell, there is no answer. It doesn't even seem to be listed as a Thunderbird bug, at least not that I can find, but it surely needs fixing. I can't believe I'm the first person to discover it.
Any ideas?
