<COMMERCIAL>

Do you suffer from relatives that always send html mails?
Do you hate those spam mails that are sent in html?
Have you subscribed to a newsletter but it doesn't offer a plain ASCII version?

Stop puzzling what those tags mean! Stop trying to decipher those html entities!
Try using the fabulous Vilistextum for converting your html mail into readable ASCII!

</COMMERCIAL>

For the time being, I know how to convert HTML mails for mutt, Gnus 5.8.8 and Gnus 5.10.
Instructions for other mail reader are welcome.

mutt

Put this in your .mailcap:

text/html; vilistextum %s - ; copiousoutput

And this in your .muttrc:

auto_view text/html

Gnus Oort and newer (5.10, No Gnus)

Put the following lines into your .gnus:

;; prefer to show plain text over markup for multipart/alternative
(setq  mm-discouraged-alternatives (append mm-discouraged-alternatives 
                                    '("text/html" "text/richtext")))

;; add buttons and emphasize for html MIME parts
(add-to-list 'gnus-buttonized-mime-types '"text/html")
(add-to-list 'gnus-article-treat-types "text/html")

(add-to-list 'mm-text-html-renderer-alist
             '(vilistextum mm-inline-render-with-file nil
               "vilistextum" "-l" "-r" "-c" "-s" file "-"))
(add-to-list 'mm-text-html-washer-alist 
             '(vilistextum mm-inline-wash-with-file nil
               "vilistextum" "-l" "-r" "-c" "-s" file "-"))
(setq mm-text-html-renderer 'vilistextum)

Gnus 5.8.8 resp. 5.9.0

Put this in your .emacs, or .gnus or somewhere else where it might be appropriate:

;; ---------------------------------------------------------------------
;; prefer to show plain text over markup for multipart/alternative
(setq  mm-discouraged-alternatives (append mm-discouraged-alternatives 
    '("text/html" "text/richtext")))

;; adapted from Mark Thomas (swoon@bellatlantic.net)
;; use external program to view inline HTML
(when t ;; change to nil to comment out
  (let ((old-text-html-test (assoc "text/html" mm-inline-media-tests))
        (new-text-html-test '("text/html"
                              my:gnus-html2text
                              (lambda (handle)
                                (fboundp 'my:gnus-html2text)))))
    (if old-text-html-test
        (setcdr old-text-html-test (cdr new-text-html-test))
      (setq mm-inline-media-tests (cons new-text-html-test
                                        mm-inline-media-tests)))))

;; function to call to handle text/html attachments
(defun my:gnus-html2text (handle)
  (let (text)
    (with-temp-buffer
      (mm-insert-part handle)
      (save-window-excursion
        (my:html2text-region (point-min) (point-max))
        (setq text (buffer-string))))
    (mm-insert-inline handle text)))

(defun my:html2text-region-vilistextum (min max)
  "Replace the region with the result of running vilistextum on it. "
  (interactive "r")
  ;; vilistextum accepts html on stdin
  (call-process-region min max "vilistextum" t t t "-clrs" "-" "-"))

(defalias 'my:html2text-region 'my:html2text-region-vilistextum)
;; ---------------------------------------------------------------------

---

Patric Mueller